ashesandghostff | Entries tagged with fandom snowflake challenge

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.

It's hardly even the 15th anymore, but I've stewed over this all day and haven't come up with anything better than this...

I challenge all of you try creating something you haven't before, or normally wouldn't. Try to break out of your normal box.

Usually write slash? Try femslash, or het. Never tried podficcing? Record a short one, see how you like it. Try making a fanvid, or a fanmix, or a picspam. Try a trope you thought you wouldn't enjoy writing, and find a way to make it work for you. Stretch your boundaries, test your limits, and see what it does for your art.

Chances are it'll at least be fun.

In your own space, write a love letter. Write it Fandom in general, to a particular fandom, to a trope, a relationship, a character, or to your flist. Share you love and squee as loud as you want to.

I thought about this one for a while, and decided yeah, I'm just gonna be predictable.

( A love letter... to the podfic community. )

In your own space, talk about setting yourself a fannish goal. Big or small, it doesn't matter. Some great examples include: complete a bingo, sign-up for a Big Bang, write that fic you've been thinking about for years, podfic that story that you love, make a fanmix for your fandom, post that bit of meta or reclist you keep postponing. Maybe resolve to be better at leaving feedback, or answering comments.

Whoops. I kind of did this yesterday. I'll make some different and more specific goals today!

1. The big obvious one that already has its own post: I want to record 50 podfics in 2014. So far this year I have 3, and a to-pod list of 26. In that 50, I want at least 10 different fandoms, at least one longer than 2 hours, and at least five coffee shop AU fics.

2. I would like to complete a Podfic Big Bang. I joined one-- the CakeBang SPN challenge-- and I've already got a fic in my to-podfic list that's perfect for it. The deadline on that is June.

3. I want to finish my Silent Hill 3 alternate-ending fic. No one will read it, I know, but I just want it to be DONE. It's the fic that got me writing again, albeit extremely infrequently, and I need to get it off of my to-do list.

4. I want to generally participate more in the podfic community and get more people involved in podficcing. I want to comment more, listen to more podfic, give audio feedback, do more challenges, all that stuff.

In your own space, talk about what you think the future holds for fandom. What are your hopes and dreams for fandom? Do you have any predictions about what the next five years holds for fandom?

Being, as I am, so very new to fandom, I don't feel comfortable making sweeping predictions, so I'm mostly going to talk about what I want for myself in fandom.

The big, fandom-wide things I'd like to see happen should be obvious.

More podfic!
More transformative works policies!
More acceptance of repods!
More challenges both specific to podfic and inclusive of podfic!

Podfic is my jam, the biggest way I feel like I can make a contribution to fandom, so I just want to see the medium grow and thrive.

In terms of myself and where I see myself going in fandom... Well, considering that less than a year ago I'd never even read a fanfiction and didn't know podfic was a thing, a lot could change in five years. Here are a few things I'd like to do:

Get into podfic in a big way. Become known as one of those people who makes large amounts of high-quality podfic. Become someone people seek out to podfic their stories. (I know, this is kind of aiming high, shut up, a person can dream)
Explore the medium of podfic more thoroughly. Try adding music or audio effects, try multi-voice podfics/radio plays, experiment with different voices and perspectives...
Work with a variety of writers to make pod-together type fanworks.
Make more fanart. Get to a place where I feel like I can be proud of my style and ability, at least to an extent.
Get a pop filter and a better recording setup. (I'm hoping when we move I can find a place with a small den or walk-in closet that I can turn into a studio)
Write more. Get to a place where I feel okay about my writing. Finish the fanfic that got me started writing, finally (seriously I'm 5000 words in and totally stymied, have been for like 6 months). Try writing kink, femslash, het, and maybe even gen (gasp).

Stretch yourself a little and try something new. Go play in a new fandom or with a new pairing or trope. Try creating a different kind of fanwork. Or check out some types of fanworks that are new to you.

I've been meaning to try watching a fanvid for a while but hadn't gotten around to it, so this was the kick in the pants I needed. I watched Dance With You by mklutz, and holy crap, I didn't even know that much footage of Kaner and Tazer being enormous dorks about each other existed. Crazy adorable and great choice of song.

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.

Wellll now. Let me see.

1. Coffee shop AU fics of any fandom I'm even vaguely familiar with. I. LOVE. Coffee shop AUs. I know some people hate them, but they are my FAVORITE THING. They are so cozy and happy and domestic and I just love coffee shops anyway, in real life, so yes. Coffee shop AUs. The fluffier the better. If there's smut in there, too, I might explode from happy. Plus, I'll podfic it (I've a goal of recording at least five coffee shop AU podfics this year) if you are interested!

2. Podfic requests. I know, this seems odd, but seriously, I'm trying to record fifty podfics this year, I need some help choosing, and there's nothing I love more than making other people happy. So please please please request podfic of any fic you wrote, or that you like, or that you were thinking of podficcing but won't have time or don't feel comfortable with, or for any reason at all. Really. Details of what I will record are in this post. If you're worried I'm overwhelmed with requests, DON'T BE. I literally have zero specific requests as of this moment.

3. More blanket permission statements. As a podficcer, it makes my life SO much easier when people have, in their AO3 profiles or on their journal sticky post or somewhere else easily visible, a statement about transformative works. Even if you don't want podfic made of your work, it saves me a lot of time if I know that up-front, rather than having to message you about it and then wait for a response. I will always, always give credit and link back to your original work on AO3 (which, for the record, messages you so you're informed that it happened). It would make me SO happy if more people had permission statements on their profiles.

In your own space, rec at least 3 fanworks you thought you wouldn't like (because they weren't your fandom or they pushed against your boundaries or you thought you just wouldn't be interested) but you ended up loving.

Oh, boy. Here we go.

So, first and most obvious:

Something Almost Tender by oanja. I rec'd this one back on one of the previous days. It's Omegaverse, firstly, and secondly, Zach Parise/Mikko Koivu?! What?! But seriously, it is incredible. I adore it. It's one of my favorite soulbonding fics.

Must Love Quidditch by dracosoftie. First of all, it's 103k words. Something you should know about me-- in general I don't read fic longer than 20k or so. Just out of time constraints, I prefer shorter fic. This one is NOT SHORTER FIC. Also it's heavily based on a big fat secret and misunderstanding, which are usually tropes that drive me CRAZY. This one, though, the misunderstanding part isn't actually dragged out too long, they get their shit straight pretty quickly, and there's a secondary issue that's not misunderstanding based for the second half of the book. Oh, and? It's kidfic. I don't usually read ANYTHING involving children, but the kid in this book isn't annoying and doesn't take away from the story at all.

and finally:

The series Stark Technologies, For All Your Text and E-mail Requirements by kyaticlikestea. I wasn't sure about this one at first, because some of the pairings-- I mean, Bruce Banner/Thor?? But it is SO FREAKING FUNNY. Seriously. I almost hurt myself trying to stifle my laughter, reading it at work.

In your own space, create a love meme for yourself. Let people tell you how amazing and awesome and loveable you really are.

This is tough for me, but I also could really use some love this week-- it's been tough for a lot of reasons-- so feel free to say whatever you like about me or my fanworks. :) Since I know I'm new to fandom and the DW community and not a lot of people know me, here's a little bit of info.

This is me:

I make podfic. Some of it is silly, some of it is erotic, some of it is inspiring, some of it is heartbreakingly sad. (none of them are longer than an hour, and the "inspiring" one is the shortest at 18 minutes if you want to give a listen).

I also make all my own cover art:

I also write, very occasionally, and have one fic posted. It's PWP, fyi.

Thanks, preemptively, to anyone that sends some love my way! (Anon commenting is on, btw)

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.

I did this one by accident! All the details are in this post, but I recorded (and made cover art for) a podfic called [Podfic] Requisition 128-3C: Intent to Initiate Sexual Intimacy. Click here to listen on AO3.

In your own space, share a book/song/movie/tv show/fanwork/etc that changed your life. Something that impacted on your consciousness in a way that left its mark on your soul.

This one was a tough one for me. At the risk of being irritatingly indecisive, I'm going to have to share two. Both are critically important to who I am today, for entirely different reasons.

The first is the book that shaped my childhood, my imagination, my personality, my sense of humor, and my aesthetics.

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll.

I cannot remember a time in my life when I didn't know this story back to front and upside down. It's probably one of the first books my mom read to me, and it's definitely one of the first novels I read for myself. It's because of this book that i value imagination, wordplay, creativity, and daydreaming to the extent that I do. Hell, I have a massive chest tattoo of roses and a key because of this book. Because of what this book means to me. Because of what it made me. It's probably even responsible for my love of tea, to be entirely honest.

The second is ...a bit different, but still incredibly important to me. It's the game that shifted me from "someone who plays games" to "gamer", from "afraid of monsters" to "seeks out the things that go bump in the night", and from 'skeptical of fandom" to "has read over 4000 fanfictions in the last six months, written two, and recorded six podfics".

Silent Hill.

I played Silent Hill for the first time in High School, a borrowed copy on my then-boyfriend's Playstation 2. I played it through all the way-- the first game I EVER beat by myself-- in less than a week, by myself, in the dark. I absolutely devoured this game, and the sequels (up through four. After that they got... bad.) It's a brilliant piece of work, the perfect survival horror game, perfectly blending puzzles with combat and twisted, brilliantly psychological plot. I love everything about it, even the admittedly rather shit graphics. This game is the reason I got into horror, but also the game that really made me a Gamer-- the first game that really took over my life, that was MY adventure, not just sitting in my brother's room watching HIM play.

The fact that what finally got me to start reading fanfiction was the realization that there was Silent Hill fanfiction, the realization that I could spend more time in this brilliant twisted world... that certainly helps my opinion of it.

In your own space, talk about a creator. Show us why you think they are amazing.

I'm going to talk about three: One writer, one podficcer, one artist.

WRITER: thehoyden

I feel like every time I finish a hockey fic and go "holy crap, that was awesome", it was written by thehoyden. In fact, one of the first-- and one of my favorite-- hockey fics I ever read was by thehoyden, and I still insist it's one of the best fics in any fandom out there. That one is:

Tour de Force, aka the secret writer Kaner fic. It's written from Kaner's perspective, as he decides to try to write a novel-- in secret-- and deals with the outcome of that particular decision. Funny, clever, perfectly spot-on in-character, fantastic sexual/romantic tension, and great sex scenes.

Another favorite is Right on the Limits, aka the sentinel/guide Sid/Geno fic. This one is arguably my favorite hockey fic, even more so than Tour de Force, simply because I love sentinel/guide fic so very very much. Again, perfectly in-character, and pulls in a ton of real-life details (like the fact that Sid's eye-tracking is off the charts in real life, so it makes total sense that he'd be a sentinel) that make the fic that much more perfect. The Geno in this fic is my favorite Geno in fandom, too. (Plus, again with the great sex scenes.)

thehoyden's newest hockey fic is Game Plan, which launched itself to the top of my favorites list within about a paragraph of reading it. It's a Sid/Geno breakfast-based seduction fic. Yet another clever, funny story, with just the right amount of (seriously hot) sex scenes. thehoyden's Sid is always so perfectly balanced between endearing and annoying, frustrating and cutely quirky, and Geno half helps, half herds him to behave like a normal human being.

PODFICCER: Knight_Tracer

Knight_Tracer is kind of podfic yoda, for me. She's my hero. She's crazy prolific, has a fantastic voice and presence for podfic, and has great audio quality. Plus, she gets Geno's voice just right without trying too hard at an accent. Here are a few of my favorite podfics she's done:

Fastening One Heart to Every Falling Thing (yes, more Sid/Geno, they're my OTP, shut up)

A Californian Werewolf in New York (the best Teen Wolf AU out there, and it's a fanfic/podfic collab with Knight_Tracer!)

All Talk (a great test of a podficcer-- it's phone sex, and LOTS of it, and it's super, super hot)

ARTIST: videntefernandez

The. Best. Night Vale artist. Ever. videntefernandez is responsible for 90% of my WTNV headcannons. Here's a small selection:

Comment to someone you haven't ever interacted with before or introduce yourself to someone you've interacted with and friend/follow them.

This is something I mean to do more often this year as a rule anyway, so it was good to get a start on it! I went back to the first fic I rec'd yesterday and left a comment. I had been meaning to anyway-- it's one I read months ago and still love every time I come back to it, and it had no comments at all (which is such a crime)!

Plus, well, I know how much getting comments makes my day, so I want to give that to other people.

In your own space, post a rec 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. See if you can rec fanworks that are less likely to be praised: tiny fandoms, rare pairings, fanworks other than stories, lesser-known kinks or tropes. Find fanworks that have few to no comments, or creators new to a particular fandom who maybe aren't well known or appreciated. Appreciate them.

(Fair warning: most of these are rated explicit and contain a lot of sex)

Hurt That Doctor by HappyLeech: G, Gen, Silent Hill 1. An incredible little exploration of the character Lisa Garland, from Silent Hill 1. I adore this little fic. It's everything I love about Lisa. I particularly love that she explained why all the other nurses are wearing blue or green, and Lisa is the only one in red. It's beautiful and simple and poignant and powerful and I love it.

Psychosis by MadeOfSquirrels: T, Gen, Silent Hill/TF2. A Silent Hill/Team Fortress 2 crossover. Yeah. If that doesn't make you at least curious, you clearly have never played either game. This is the fic that got me into crossovers and AUs. It's so perfectly Silent Hill, but also makes you actually legitimately care about every TF2 class as people. It's incredible.

Promise Me This Moment by suilven: E, Garrus/FemShep, Mass Effect. My ultimate Mass Effect Garrus/Shepherd rec. This one is so damn sweet, and so good, and I can totally see it happening just like this.

Something Almost Tender by oanja: E, Parise/Koivu, Hockey RPF (omegaverse). I know what you're thinking. That pairing? OMEGAVERSE? But yes. Incredibly well written, super sweet, and come on! It's soulbonding! What's not to love? I adore this fic. I thought I only shipped Zach Parise with Ryan Suter, but this fic really makes this pairing work perfectly, and everyone I know that usually hates omegaverse loved this fic.

[Podfic] Unraveled by sabrina_il, read by were_duck: E, Kaner/Tazer, Hockey RPF (hard kink). My gift from ITPE, and damn is it ever hot. I listen to a lot of podfic, but this is my favorite one for a lot of reasons, and not just because it was recorded especially for me! Awesome hard kink fic, and were_duck's voice gives me the shivers.

Right on the Limits by thehoyden: E, Sid/Geno, Hockey RPF. Someday I'm going to podfic this, which is why I HAVE to rec it, because it's Geno and I have no idea how to do his accent/voice but I'm going to podfic it anyway because I love this story so much that I NEED to read it to people. It's just. So good. Sentinel/Guide is one of my favorite tropes (mutant powers? soulbonding? fascinating relationship complexities? sign me the fuck UP) and it works so incredibly well for this pairing, and the author really pulled in a ton of real-life details that show you WHY it works so well. It's beautiful.

An Exercise in "Worthless" by beastofthesky: M, Dean/Castiel, Supernatural. I almost feel guilty about reccing this, because it's so damn popular already, and I'm sure everyone's read it, but this is the fic that cemented my fledgling love of fanfiction and got me into Supernatural fandom. It is SUCH a good AU, in that it pulls a lot of details directly from the show through the lens of the new universe-- enough that you, like me, don't even need to see the show to understand. Plus, I mean, come on, tattoos. Very yes.

Get Some [Ink] by BewareTheIdes15: E, Jensen/Jared, Supernatural RPF (hard kink). Speaking of tattoos... have some tattoo kink porn! Holy shit I love this fic so much. It is at least close to being the fic I've read the most times. Incredibly hot, and really creative. It's not your standard sex scene, folks.

And no recs list from me is ever, ever complete without this series...

Steve Rogers Never Was a Boy Scout by ifitwasribald: E, Steve/Tony, Avengers (hard kink). This is the series that caused my kink awakening. I am dead serious. I had inklings of my preferences before, but had never really even thought to explore them until I opened this series and went "Holy shit, I AM Tony in this." It gave me the ability to point to something and say to my husband "look, just read this, that's me." so I didn't have to try to explain it all. It actually, genuinely changed my life. Plus it's ridiculously hot and well written and, besides Steve's super serum abilities, pretty realistic, and they go into risk-aware kink practices, which is really important. My husband and I actually use the stoplight safeword system.

In your own space, promote three communities, challenges, blogs, pages, Twitters, Tumblrs or platforms and explain why you love them.

Being so new to fandom, I haven't been in a LOT of challenges/communities/etc, but I'm excited about the ones I have done. I'm coming at this from the angle of being primarily a (new-ish) podficcer.

ITPE: The Informal Twitter Podfic Exchange! Signups happen on twitter, of course, and the challenge runs from Oct 15 to Dec 17. It's "secret santa" style, and the podfics are sent to their recipients on Dec 24.

I signed up for ITPE on a whim, pretty much. I wanted to stretch my wee podficcer wings, so to speak, by having to record something I would possibly not otherwise have recorded. It worked-- I ended up getting someone as my partner who has vastly different taste than I do. I struggled for a while with what to record, but ended up going with my favorite canon-era Merlin/Arthur fic in the end. I could probably have done better catering to my partner's taste, rather than to my own, but hopefully they will enjoy it when they get a chance to listen to it! I had a lot of fun, anyway, and it gave me some good experience with podficcing explicit fic and forced me to be more careful with my audio quality (I had to re-record and edit the entire thing because my old headset mic was awful). Plus, it was my first challenge and my first podfic with a deadline. I liked the informal nature of it quite a bit, too.

Fandom Aid: I found out about Fandom Aid through some friends of mine tweeting about their offerings for the Typhoon Haiyan fundraiser. It's a Livejournal community where "like minded authors representing hundreds of fandoms, and countries of the world, have come together to offer custom-written fic in support of those affected by natural disasters", in their words, only they also accept offerings of fanart, podfic, fancrafts, and anything else fannish that can be donated to support relief organizations.

Why I love this should be obvious, but to elaborate, I'm not exactly wealthy, so any time I can DO something for charity rather than donating money, I'm all in. I offered three podfics of any length and fandom, and ended up "selling" two of them. This was even more of a challenge for me than ITPE, because one of the fics I ended up recording was not the sort of thing I would normally read and was emotionally difficult for me. I learned a lot about my own boundaries, but I also made some pretty decent podfic, and all in the name of helping those affected by a disaster. As someone who lost everything in an apartment building fire at age 15 and was helped enormously by the Red Cross, this means a lot to me.

Amplificathon: You might think anyone who listens to or makes podfic already knows amplificathon, but since I was so recently new I'm well aware that not everyone comes pre-acquainted with all the available resources, so. Amplificathon. A DW community where new podfic is posted, and anything posted there gets archived into the Jinjurly audio archive.

Not only has Amplificathon given me a place to easily find new podic, but it's given my podfics exposure (and, of course, the benefits of being archived). It's pretty much The Place for podfic, as far as I'm concerned, on DW.

Day One

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.

Here's the thing, friends. I got into fandom this past May. I have literally seven fanworks. Total. So there's not much to choose from, but here are my top three-- one from each medium I participate in.

Podfic: This is the category I have the most of, with five posted podfics. I love four of the five (the last one was tough for me), but my favorite is probably Whether I'm In Your Arms or I'm At Your Feet, originally written by Rest.

This is my favorite of my podfics for several reasons. It's got a lot of emotional variety, and I felt like I did a pretty good job with the dialogue in the most emotional parts. It's also the first fic I recorded with my beloved Blue Snowball microphone, so I felt like the audio quality was much, much better than I'd previously managed. It's just a great fic, though-- by far my favorite BDSM AU, that makes the submissive's role look not only beautiful but fulfilling for the submissive themself, and shows both roles in a non-sexual light. The dominants aren't all ravening cruel beasts, either, or strict overbearing assholes, and Jonny comes off as both dominant and incredibly kind and loving.

Fanfic: I've only posted one fanfiction, so far, so my rec here has to be Always Been Yours. It's a secret virgin trope PWP fic, Kaner/Tazer, but I had a lot of fun writing it and I think it manages to be both funny and hot. There are things I'd change about it now, but I still like it and I'll always have a soft spot for it since it was my first. (I have two more in the works, but they're not close to posting yet. I'm a VERY slow writer.)

Fanart: I've only done one fanart, ever, and I don't think that much of it, honestly, but I spent a lot of time on it and it's the first piece of art I've ever done completely digitally. It was inspired by the song Angels, by Owl City; specifically, the lyrics "The indications revealed / That few of us realize life is quite surreal / So if you’re dying to see / I guarantee there are angels around your vicinity". This just screamed CARLOS THE SCIENTIST to me, so I drew this. There are a lot of things I'm not thrilled with-- the background, the coloring, the texture of the bark-- but I think for a first digital work (and second finished drawing in at least five years) it's pretty decent. Originally posted here.