scripsi | Entries tagged with the snowflake challenge

Day 1

In your own space, talk about why you're participating in Snowflake and, if you’ve participated in the past, how the challenge has affected you. What drew you to it? What did you take away from it? What do you hope to accomplish this year? Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

This is my fourth Snowflake! The first year I participated I had been absent from fandom for several years, and the Snowflake Challenge was the perfect way to get back to it. I’ve always had a lot of fun, and always end up with a few new friends and tons of new fanfic to read.

Day 2

In your own space, share a favorite memory about fandom: the first time you got into fandom, the last time a fanwork touched your heart, crazy times with fellow fans (whether on-line or off-line), a lovely comment you’ve received or have left for someone. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

I got into fandom quite by chance. I was home with my newborn son in 1999 and needed a distraction on sleepless nights. We had only had Internet for a few weeks and I had no idea what to do with it. But when googling an author I liked I found myself joining a mail group. For a few years that was all I did, participating in discussion there, and having lots of fun. I’m still friends with people I got to know there. And through it I also learned about the concept of fanfic. Up until 2004 I only read it sporadically, but then I saw a promo picture for the movie Peter Pan which for some reason triggered a writing impulse. And fell down the slippery slope… No regrets though!

Crossposts: https://scripsi.livejournal.com/263426.html

Day 01

In your own space, talk about why you are doing the Fandom Snowflake Challenge? What drew you to it as a participant? What do you hope to accomplish by doing these challenges? Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

( Read more... )

Crossposts: http://scripsi.livejournal.com/127186.html

Day 15

In your own space, create your own challenge. What’s something you want to see more people doing in fandom? Is there something fun you’ve tried that you think other people would enjoy if they gave it a go? Dare your friends to try it out, and have fun with it. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

I’m doing an extremely selfish challenge; friend me!. You see, I have been on a fandom hiatus for quite some time, writing a few fics, but not really engaging. Now when I am again, I find that most of my fandom friends have drifted away and so I look for new ones. If you are into any of my listed fandoms and enjoy talking about fanwork, please feel free to friend me. Actually, even if we don’t share any fandoms but enjoy chatting about fanfiction in general, I’m happy to be friended for that reason as well.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
Doctor Who
Harry Potter
The Historian/Dracula
Penny Dreadful
Peter Pan
Sleep Hollow

Day 14
In your own space, post recs for at least three fanworks that you did not create. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

Story: Time For Changes by Kalloway
Fandom: The Parasol Protectorate
Summary: Ivy debates the immediate needs of her new hive. Post-canon
Characters: Ivy Hisselpenny
Rating: PG
Why I rec it: I love The Parasole protectorate-series by Gail Carriger and hghly recommendate it. This is short and sweet and highlight’s Ivy’s character perfectly.

Story: Staying Neutral by The_Plaid_Slytherin
Fandom: Deadwood
Summary: As a rule, Al doesn't get involved. Post-canon
Characters: Al Swearengen
Rating and warnings: PG-13 and swearing, if that bother’s you. It’s perfectly in character, though.
Why I rec it: I always like to hear “a little of what happened after”.

Story: Company Man by justlikethehamptons
Fandom: The Shadow Over Innsmouth by H. P. Lovecraft and also A Cabin In the Woods, Which I don’t know anything about.
Summary: Just how did that kid end up running the Innsmouth grocery store, anyway?
Characters: The grocery employee
Rating: PG
Why I rec it: I always enjoy getting to know something about minor characters in a story.

Day 13

Fandom is full of amazing people who make awesome things. Let's show some love.

In your own space, talk about a creator. Show us why you think they are amazing. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

This is actually much harder than to pick an individual fic, but I have recently come across a writer whose fics I really love. I have already recced her fics so I probably come across as rather fangirly now, but I really really love

daystarsearcher fics. I only just realised that there is Doctor Who-fics, which in itself is rather odd as I have been a fan of both the classic and new Doctor Who for years. So I have been reading far and wide and very recently stumbled over her work. Everything I have had time to read I have liked. Two Birds In A Cage is, though, one of the best fics I have ever read

I really think you can read this story even if you have never watched Doctor Who, if you think of it as an SF story. The plot is about a humanoid alien, the Doctor, who crash-lands in a Great Britain that is controlled by ad fascist government. The alien is imprisoned and because his technological knowledge much more advanced, he is forced to build weapons for those who have locked him up. One of his requirements is to have an assistant and a young woman who has been arrested for dissident behaviour, SJ, finds herself being “given” to him. He distrust her, as one of his former assistants have turned out to be a spy for the government and she is terrified as she has been tortured, raped and mutilated before she is turned over to him and has no reasons to believe that he will not treat her the same way. It is a work in progress and so far the story have mostly been about these two people who has no one else than each other and have to learn to trust to survive. It’s really a quite complex story with many layers and it unfolds rather slowly, which could make a story boring, but in this case makes it more thrilling. I have read it twice, got an extremely vivid nightmare out of it and can’t help wondering what will happen next, so you can tell that it has given me a very strong impression.

The fics can be found at An Archive of Our Own and Livejournal

Day 12

In your own space, talk about what you bring to fandom. It can be something tangible, or not. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

I’m perfectly happy if that I bring a few minutes entertainment. I don’t strive to write great literature, but I know there are readers who re-read my stories again and again, which I love!

Day 11

In your own space, post a rec for fannish and/or creative resources. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

I’m going to be very boring here and recommend the use a website (or book, of course (with synonyms. I usually go to Thesaurus. It’s very easy to end up repeating a favourite word which can make your writing a bit boring to read. For me, who am not a native speaker of English, I feel it is even more important. I recently re-read a chapter of a fic I wrote where I managed to use the same word three times in one paragraph. Yikes!

Day 10

Stretch yourself a little and try something new. Go play in a new fandom or with a new pairing. Try working in a new medium. Or check out some fanworks that are new to you. (The recs from Day 1 might be a good place to start!) Leave a comment in this post saying you did it.

So I did just that, went to the recs of Day 1 and picked Interdepartmental Cooperation by MariannaMerlo.
Fandom: Harry Potter
Characters; Percy Weasley/Oliver Wood
Rating: NC-17

I choose this story because I read rather little slash and would never search out fics with either of these characters. It’s an absolutely charming story of how Oliver Wood start to work at the Ministry of Magic and really gets under Percy’s skin. Written from Percy’s POV and all his pomposity and insecurities are there, but he is much more endearing than in the books and Oliver is just lovely. Do read it and don’t forget to comment.

Day 9

In your own space, talk about what surprises you about fandom. It could be a pairing or fandom you never thought you'd like. A fanwork type you never knew existed. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

I think my biggest surprise with fandom was that it was such a female oriented community. I have met men who write fanfic, but just a handful, on the whole they are written by girls, women, old ladies. I think that is rather wonderful. I also think that fanfiction really expresses how diverse female sexuality is. Not all fanfics deal with sex, of course, but those who do, show how differently women look at it- a far cry from romances with a strict heterosexual normative view n what gets women hot and bothered. We have fluffy and romatic stuff here, of course, but there is also a variety of kinks and fetishes, not to mention slash. I’m all for self-insertion when I read/write fics so I prefer het, but there are many, many women out there who gets turned on when there are boy on boy action.

I have had some less nice surprises, as well. I have never understood the outright nastiness that I have seen against slash by het writers, and vice versa. Or how people can bash pairings that they don’t agree on. I really dislike that. If I don’t like something I don’t read it, but I won’t rant over it.

There is also an attitude in fandom that is hard to pin down, but as I read as an unconcious contempt for the genre. One is the way fics are treated as they are only worth noticing if they are brand new, as if they have an expire date. When I read a story that has been a few years online I often see reviews that begins with “I usually don’t review old stuff” or “My policy is not to comment…” I really, really don’t get that. I can understand that the older a fic is, the harder it is to find, as most fanfic archives sort their stories after publication date. But the writing doesn’t get worse by age. A good fanfic is a good fanfic, regardless if it was published ten years ago, or yesterday. I’m training myself to leave reviews more often, but if I don’t, it is never because a story isn’t brand new. The writer has put a lot of work into a story and will be as happy for a review over an old story as over a new.

The dislike against OC is, in my view, another expression for belittleing fanfic. Yes, I can see the dislike for a Mary Sue/Marty Stu, but they are not synonyms for OC. Badly written characters are bad no matter if it is a canon character or and original one. I have read Harry Potter-fic where Hermione is a Mary Sue and Peter Pan-fic where Wendy Darling is one.

It’s very hard to find really well-written fanfics, because fandom is so large and there is such a diversity in age, experience and writing skills, but if it is one thing I would love to see more of, is to not disregard a story because ot its age, or the writer’s choice of including OC. A fanfic writer isn’t automatically a bad writer. I know a lot of people assume that just because one borrows someone else work, but that is definitely not always the case.

Day 8

In your own space, create a love meme for yourself. Let people tell you how amazing and awesome and loveable you really are. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so. Surf the comments and find people to give love to.

Oh my, this kind of assumes that you are not just loved, but read, as well. I don’t think I have more than one regular reader on this LJ, so I don’t assume I will get many comments here. You don’t have to tell me that you love me, but I would be very interested to hear why you like my fics, if you enjoy them.

(Also, this is the second Snowflake Challenge I post today, but that is because I’m so behind.)

Day 7

In your own space, share your love for a trope, cliché, kink, motif, or theme. (More than one is okay, too.) Tell us about it, tell us why you love it, give us some examples and recs. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

Oh, I’m the queen of tropes. A majority of my stories are melodramas were the villain twirls his mustaches and crones “I have you now, my pretty!” to the hapless heroine. It is perfectly ok, I write for fun and not profit and I have great fun writing such stories. My editing tool doesn’t, it frequently complains that I write clichés.
( Read more... )

Day 6

In your own space, create a fanwork. A drabble, a ficlet, a podfic, or an icon, art or meta or a rec list. A picspam. Something. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

I have decided to make a rec-list. Apart from the joy of writing, the only reward a fanfic-writer gets is feedback. It ought to be so simple that if you write a great story you will get great feedback, but that is sadly not the case. I think most who write fics know how it feels to put a lot of work in a story, feeling that this is actually really good, then put it out and nothing happens. Nada. Zip. Perhaps the story wasn't that good after all, but there are other factors at work. Perhaps it's a small fandom, which have fewer readers. It can be a story that deals with difficult subjects, somehow readers seem to be less inclined to say "Great story" when the main reaction after is "Eeep!" (which doesn't have to be a bad reaction). :) People also gravitate to popularity and a well-known fic-writer will get more feedback than an unknown. I'm not saying all this to moan, but because I actually find it very interesting how people choose to interact with each other.

As a fic-reader myself, I must also add laziness. You read a nice story, but you can't be bothered to write down a simple sentence and press a send-button. It takes a minute or two and the author will get happy , so why not do it? I know I am at fault here and I'm actively working on giving feedback when I like a story. I have also encountered the attitude "No one gives me feedback, so why should I?". Well, perhaps if you review, the person who wrote the story will check yours out and return the favour. And sometimes you realise that someone has gushed over your story and recced it to high heavens, which is wonderful, but it would have been nice to be told that, because, you know, feedback.

So here are my recs. Go, read, enjoy and give feedback. And yes, I will look each author up and tell them that I have recced them! No ranking, just in alphabetic order, but mostly Doctor Who as that is what I have indulged myself in, recently..

Story: Offerings and Acceptance by fragratfields
Fandom: Deadwood
Summary: Alma makes an offer Al Swearengen had promised to accept. Awkwardness abounds as two complicated people try to find a way to come together without their usual facades.
Characters: Al Swearengen/Alma Garret
Rating and warnings: R and explicit sex it is.
Why I rec it: Well, this is smut, but very well-written such. Again, the characters are spot on, which really makes this fic for me. If you haven't seen Deadwood you have missed something!

Story: A Car With Character by Memory Dragon
Fandom: Classic Doctor Who
Summary: Bessie loves her Doctor, but some things were taken too far.
Characters: Bessie, The Third Doctor/The Master (Delgado) implied.
Rating: PG
Why I rec it: Just for sheer fun and because a yellow car named Bessie simply must have a character.

Story: Friends In High Places by nostalgia
Fandom: Doctor Who, both classic and new
Summary: Why Torchwood and Jack never found the Doctor when he was working for UNIT pretty much on their doorstep. I mean, apart from glaring incompetence.
Characters: The Master (Delgado), The Third Doctor, The Tenth Doctor, Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, Jack Harkness, River Song, Donna Noble, The Doctor's TARDIS
Rating: PG-13
Why I rec it: It's fun, of course, but it also seem plausible (as much as anything is in the whoverse), I can very well imagine that this is what happened. Also, I always like when the TARDIS has her say.

Story: The Master and Mrs. Pond by Memory Dragon
Fandom: Doctor Who, both classic and new.
Summary: Still waiting for her proper Doctor and Rory to find her again, Amy meets the Doctor's best enemy and gets chased around by a giant purple monster. So much for hearing embarrassing stories of the Doctor's childhood over chocolate!
Characters: Amy Pond, Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, Sergeant Benton, The Third Doctor, The Master (Delgado)
Rating: PG
Why I rec it: Because it is fun, I laughed out loud several times! Because the voices, of all the characters are spot on and that is something I always look for in a fic. It's part of a series, really part 2, but I read it before I realised it and didn't suffer.

Story: Threads by Vali
Fandom: Classic doctor Who
Summary: Who am I? Romana demanded. What am I? Am I anything at all?
Characters: Romana I, The Fourth Doctor, K-9
Rating and warnings: PG. Mentions of sibling incest off stage.
Why I rec it: I love Romana, especially in her first incarnation and I love how she evolves in this fic.

Story: As To A Portrait, Gently Drawn by
Fandom: Harry Potter
Summary: Snape patrols, and finds Luna precisely where she is not meant to be. Bathed in light, chalk in hand
Characters: Luna Lovegood, Severus Snape
Rating: PG-13
Why I rec it: This story is just lovely. Rather sad, but lovely. I also thing Luna is beautifully portrayed and Snape is good as well.

Story: Among Some Talk of You and Me by Hokuto
Fandom: The Historian
Summary: Reader, I pray that you will have the strength to walk with me a little longer.
Characters: Tha Narrator, Vlad Tepes (Dracula)
Rating: PG-13.
Why I rec it: The Historian is one of my favourite books, but it does end rather open and with far too little of Dracula in it. This is a perfect koda.

I'm a little behind schedule...

Day 5

In your own space, talk about your fannish origin story. How did you come to fandom, why did you choose your fannish name, do you have more than one secret identity? Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

As I have mentioned before, I got propelled into fandom by a still from Peter Pan (2003). My nick has to do with a much older infatuation, though. As a child I was in love with Rita Hayworth, especially in Salome. I am also an Oscar Wilde fan and his play Salome is one of my favourites. So I choose Dancingsalome. I don't really have any other nics, apart from being Salomedancing at ff.net as my a first account there got deleted... The reason my fanfic-journal is called scripsi is because I was rather active writing about other things on my more private journal. It mean "I write" in Latin.

1953-rita-hayworth-salome

Comment to someone you haven't ever interacted with before or introduce yourself to someone you've interacted with and friend/follow them. Afterwards, leave a comment in this post with the equivalent of "I did it!"

It doesn't have to be anything complex - it can be feedback for a fanwork or discussing something you might have in common or even simply admiring their icon. The point is to reach out to someone you normally wouldn't and connect with them, even if it's only for the briefest moment.

Well, I went ahead and checked a fandom I haven’t read before; H. P Lovecraft and left a comment on this very funny fic:

The Absolutely True Diary of a Teenage Yithian by Bethynyc

Day 3

In your own space, talk about your creative process - from what inspires you to what motivates you to how you manage to break through blocks. Does your process change depending on the type of creating you're doing? Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

Remember that we're talking about anything creative. Rec lists, running a challenge or a community. Pic spams, gif sets, fandom primers. Group re-reads and re-watches, with or without commentary or bad jokes. You get the idea. If you feel like you put creative energy into it, it counts.

I talked quite a lot of why I write and what’s motivates me, very recently, you can read it all here.

I find my inspiration all over. A scene in a book/movie/TV series. A quote, a song or a picture. I can also find inspiration from someone’s prompts. When I get an idea I usually mull it over for some time, going through the story in my head. When I start to write I almost always know the whole story, even if I can add scenes as I get along. I write all over the place at first, a sentence here and some dialogue there. Then I start at the beginning and work through the whole story/chapter. If I get stuck I mark the place with XX and go on with the story. Then I go back and work on the difficult bits. If I get completely stuck I let the story rest. I always have more than one story going at any time, so I just move to another one.

Day 2

In your own space, create a list of at least three fannish things you'd love to receive, something you've wanted but were afraid to ask for - a fannish wish-list of sorts. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your wish-list if you feel comfortable doing so. 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.

1. A The Historian fanfic. I love that book and would love to read more fanfic from it.

2. A Sleepy Hollow fic featuring the Hessian and Mary Van Tassel

3. Fanart from one of my fics. Any fic would do, I would just love to see it! If you are new to my journal you can find all my stories on this journal and Everything is tagged, check the fandom;-tags for my fandoms.

I just noticed this, thanks to

velvetwhip and I thought it would be fun to participate.

Day 1

In your own space, post a rec for at least three fanworks that you have created. It can be your favorite fanworks that you've created, or fanworks you feel no one ever saw, or fanworks you say would define you as a creator. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

Fanfiction for me, of course.

A Conversation
Fandom: Doctor Who The Master (Roger Delgado) visits River Song in prison.
Why I rec it: Because my mind suddenly started to wonder what these two character would think of each other and I find the result quite funny. Rated PG.

All Within
Fandom: Harry Potter. Lucius Malfoy/Luna Lovegood, sort of.
Why I rec it: It was very interesting to try to write Lucius as a person who has done a lot of bad things and isn’t a very nice, but still have a capacity for love and Luna is challenging and fun to write, period. Rated R for non-explicit NC and off stage violence and death. AU-fic taking place after Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows.

Silence
Fandom: Peter Pan
Why I rec it. It’s an eerie story where Hook has managed to win over Peter Pan and finds that there is no sweet victory. I find it a bit scary and I wrote it myself. PG-13.