brightknightie | Entries tagged with meme:snowflake

Challenge #2: Set some [fandom] goals for the coming year.

I would like to fully overhaul my userpic icons. They're almost all quite old (and old-fashioned). More to the point, they're just not what I want anymore. Step one, a new naming system for the icons I have! So that I can smoothly add new ones in an organized, findable, usable way. (If you have a favorite icon community, let me know? I'd like to see what's current and developing.)

I would like to achieve and maintain control of what appears "above the fold" on my AO3 dashboard. As you know, the "collapsed" fandoms list shows the author's 5 most-written fandoms. For me, that's currently FK (85), HL (16), D&DC (5), BSG78 (4), and then a random pull from among several fandoms in which I've written 3 pieces. I don't feel particularly called to write in any of the fandoms for which I currently have 3 stories (though, of them, most likely Pokemon GO); I just don't enjoy the default list appearing differently, often unrepresentatively, each time. To truly stabilize, I'll need a sixth D&DC, fifth BSG78, and fourth something else.

And, of course, again, I would very much like to write some "just because" stories this year -- stories not for any event or exchange, but just because. I have several D&DC WIPs, one HL/MCU WIP, a bunch of little JttW sketches... we'll see!

Challenge #1: Update your fandom information.

I'd updated my DW profile last year, but it turns out that I hadn't updated my AO3 profile since I joined it in 2011. Oops. Both are now updated as follows...

My Pseud: My online fannish journey began in email-list days with Forever Knight. I was a "Knightie" (a partisan of the hero) and the "Bright" means that while I love serious and sad stories, I side always with hope and salvation, never despair or destruction (in FK's specific metaphor, that's always humanity, never vampirism).

My Fandoms: My dearest fandoms — Forever Knight (1992-1996), Highlander (1992-1998), Dungeons & Dragons (cartoon, 1983-1985), Battlestar Galactica (original, 1978-1979) — are all long-canceled and in frequent peril of being rebooted by folks whom I worry may not love and understand them as well as I like to imagine I do. Among not-yet-canceled properties, my latest and highest delight is Overly Sarcastic Productions! As a life-long Marvel reader, I'm on the spot for everything MCU and have opinions by the yard that may or may not match anyone else's. In the comics, I am currently all in for the awesome writing of Jed MacKay. I'm on board for Strange New Worlds, the new Quantum Leap, My Adventures with Superman, and most things on PBS's Masterpiece. I love to watch new movies on the big screen, on opening weekend if I can swing it, surrounded by other people to share laughter and gasps in community... still wearing an N95 mask for now, but hopefully not forever. Also, of course, nineteenth-century English-language literature, The Journey to the West, many, many books of many kinds...

My Fanfiction: Mostly, I write canon-aware gen that sides with heroes. I often try to imitate episode structures, explore bereavement themes, or fill canonical gaps.

Writing for me in an exchange? Thank you! I have a "Likes & Dislikes" post and tag here on DW. I hope they can be useful. (I try to be an easy recipient with many options to pick from.)

"Tell us about 3 creative/fannish resources, spaces, or communities you use or enjoy."

Tip-top canon resources:

Bulbapedia, "the community-driven Pokémon encyclopedia," is the highest-quality public wiki I've ever seen. It reports and tracks every bit of canon across the entire sprawling IP. ♥

Now available only via the Wayback Machine, the old dungeonsanddragonscartoon.com fansite is still the very best D&DC resource, "from the Alicorn river to the hills of Zorm." Forever respect and gratitude to its fan creator!

It's super ugly and advertisement-ridden now, but it's as accurate and comprehensive as ever: Portal: Battlestar Galactica (TOS). I depend on its Colonial vocabulary lists.

"Add something to your fandom’s canon."

Only "add," not change, fix, override, or redirect, hmmm? Three ideas:

( HL )
( BSG78 )
( D&DC )

"Write a promo, manifesto or primer."

Imagine, if you will, an epic crossover between Homer's Odyssey and Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur, with all the ancient Greek and medieval Christian religious beliefs and holy figures running around, equally, and interacting with each other and the protagonists. Then marinate this crossover in Cervantes's Don Quixote for satire and irony. Finally, generously dust it with shredded Spenser's Faerie Queene for allegory and top off with a slather of gooey melted Dante's Divine Comedy for worldbuilding. And it's funny. So funny.

That wild mash-up would be a western literary approximation of the eastern literary classic The Journey to the West, which is set in 7th-century China, and was published as the hundred-chapter novel we know today circa 1592. It's attributed to Wu Cheng'en (questioning the real authorship is a thing a la Shakespeare, only more so, because the original publication was anonymous). It wasn't translated into English at all until the early 20th-century, and wasn't translated into English in full until the 1980s, but of course it's been available and loved in many other languages for centuries. Like the European works I mention above, the hundred-chapter-novel of JttW draws on previous literature, folklore, and real history and religion to craft a literary achievement that has stood the test of time and been itself endlessly adapted. The way many of us might casually refer to Arthur's sword or Odysseus's journey, folks who grew up with JttW might casually refer to Wukong's rod or Xuanzang's quest.

We need a back-cover blurb here, right? Wikipedia says: "Enduringly popular, the novel is at once a comic adventure story, a humorous satire of Chinese bureaucracy, a source of spiritual insight, and an extended allegory." ( Read more... )

"Update your fandom information."

Instead of a pinned post, I like to point folks to my DW profile. It's up to date! And of course please check out my AO3 works.

I try to keep this journal fandom-focused. The fandoms-as-fandoms dearest to my heart are still Forever Knight and Highlander (with BSG78 and D&DC hard on their heels). Scratch that surface, and you'll uncover Marvel, Trek, and the long nineteenth century in English-language literature, among many other things. I'm presently besotted with Overly Sarcastic Productions. I'm watching the Quantum Leap sequel, The Equalizer reboot, everything Marvel, and just about everything on PBS's Masterpiece. And I play way too much Pokemon GO.

I always side with heroism and decry villainy. I almost always prefer gen to romance. I usually prefer canon couples to non-canon, and canon continuation, insertion, or divergence to complete AUs.

I love Dreamwidth as a platform and wish more folks would play fannishly here. :-) Thank you very much for being here and playing here!

> "tell us about fandom resources, spaces, or communities you use or enjoy"

A community that I follow that you might not know is

fanart_recs. The moderator tries to get folks to commit to a run of one rec per week for a month in a certain fandom, or similar cadences.

For the "Recently in FK" post each month, I always check

fandom_on_dw,

fandomcalendar,

yuletide, and

fancake. (I check others, too, but most of the others have been quiet long and long.)

I get notifications on my DW reading page of new FK stories posted to the AO3. If you didn't know this feature was available, well, it is! Subscribe to this DW feed for AO3 FK posting notifications. (You can of course also check for existing feeds for other fandoms and make a new feed for any that don't exist.)

For perhaps an odd twist on options for consuming meta analysis, I'm going to recommend three YouTube channels that I enjoy: ImplicitlyPretentious, who makes video essays (mostly MCU recently) with lots of citations of monomyth resources; CinemaTherapy, which analyzes films (and some MCU TV) with an eye to the mental and emotional health of the characters as depicted (the best-friend hosts are a professional therapist and a professional filmmaker); and, my current favorite, OverlySarcasticProductions, which I discovered in November and have so far found to be seemingly endlessly awesome about mythology, history, tropes, literature, architecture, video games, and more (I haven't yet watched all their stuff, but oh! so fun).

> "make a list of [fannish] things that you wish existed... and/or that you'd like someone to create or do for you"

For me? :-D

Like many of us, I wish we had piles of fantastic stories for my own personal favorite rare pairing (which, of course, no, because: rare). Mine is FK's Nick/Urs via canon divergence. Both characters have tremendous challenges, of course, yet I feel that they also have key things in common, and if they could find themselves having each other's backs, they could fit their strengths and weaknesses together to grow stronger together than apart, on each other's behalf and for themselves, with, eventually, forgiveness and joy for their road ahead.

I wish there were more smart D&DC stories about the long road from canon to the present day, whether in the Realm or the real world. I really want to crawl inside insightful stories about our heroes growing up and being grown up. I'm still here; so must the characters be... at least most of them. Also, I wish there were more Diana stories in general, and oh! I wish there were a brilliant Diana story written by an African-American fanwriter who engages with the little canon gives us on Diana's family.

I wish there were more amazing FK stories in which Lacroix never came back into the present of the reality, or was suitably re-killed to restore the original metaphors and expectations.

I hope that the MyOldFandom > RetroTV and RareWomen > RarelyWritten > EveryWoman exchanges, and their friends and relatives, will run happily again this year, and for many years. Also HLH_Shortcuts. (FKFicFest, yes.)

I wish someone would discover the elusive excellent method that would allow the AO3 to easily, cleanly, sustainably support tagging by "major/starring" versus "minor/appearing" (and even "mentioned") characters.

I wish there were a legitimate, ethical, easy way to get all of Susan G.'s fanfic onto the AO3 in beautiful, perfect condition, to be enjoyed by everyone as long as the AO3 lasts. (As you know, she died before the AO3 came along.) ♥

> "talk about your favorite AU/fusion tropes, or tell us why AU/fusions aren’t your cup of tea"

I personally tend to think of fusions as in the crossover family, rather than the AU family. So this prompt asked me vocabulary and taxonomy as well as genre questions. On consideration, I see how fusions are often as closely related to AUs as they are to crossovers -- a kind of convergent evolution, perhaps!

For myself, I had long thought of Alternate Universe as the overarching top-level category that includes all the kinds of contradictions to and divergences from canon. This would have every degree of branched, parallel, and "total" (coffee shop and so on). Basically, I had thought of anything that didn't intend to fit into, follow from, or cap off canon as it existed at the time of the story as an AU.

From the replies I've seen to this meme prompt, it sounds like the more current understanding of "AU" has largely shed the most modest tier of canon tinkering, and now more usually means the broadest tier: the "total" AUs. Is that about right?

( My own likes in AUs )

What do you think? Do "total" AUs go with my dearest fandoms better than I yet realize?

> "...set some goals for the coming year."

I plan to run fkficfest again this year, if at least a few of you all would enjoy it, and circumstances allow. (I'm imminently changing positions and teams at work, so I don't yet know when might be good.)

I hope to finish the D&DC treat story I started (for a now-long-passed fest). The requestor asked for an "epic" rendition of a certain pairing, which I've seen her request many times, in many events, and rarely get a nibble. It's a rare pair: neither canon nor fan-favorite. I got it into my head that I could put something together that she might enjoy, because if I pull this string and push that stick, I can see the characters getting together, too. I'm no good at romance, but... I'm going to try.

I would like to finally get control of the default fandoms display on my AO3 page. That is, you know how your top five most-written fandoms show "above the fold," and in case of ties, populate at random? Well, my top two are always FK (84) and HL (15), but everything else is 1-3, and I don't feel... represented? ...by what shows in the other three slots. So. This requires 2 new stories each in at least 3 of D&DC, PoGO, BSG78, or YB. Or 4 new stories each in fandoms I've never written before. That is wildly ambitious for a single year, given my usual output! We shall see.

What are you looking at atop your horizon this fannish year?

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Entries tagged with meme:snowflake

Snowflake challenge #2 (2024): "Set some fannish goals"

Snowflake challenge #1 (2024): "Update your fandom information"

Snowflake Challenge 2023 #5: Resources

Snowflake Challenge 2023 #4: Add something to canon

Snowflake Challenge 2023 #2: Promo (Journey to the West)

Snowflake Challenge 2023 #1: Fandom info

'22 Snowflake Challenge #7: Communities & resources

'22 Snowflake Challenge #4: Wishes

'22 Snowflake Challenge #3: AUs

'22 Snowflake Challenge #2: Goals

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