The Last Jedi (finally), Despicable Me 3, and Snowflake catch-up
We watched Despicable Me 3 over the weekend. I keep expecting this series to jump the shark for me, but somehow it never does? I do think B and I enjoy them more than the rodents do, at this point. B was giggling every time the Minions were onscreen (he was watching the Minions, and we were mostly watching his glee), and I was giggling every time the pigs were onscreen (they were super cute pigs!), and there were several hilarious parenting-related lines Spoilers! (from Gru's mother's, "Obviously, I got second pick" to Gru's "She will always be twelve!" line about Margo and Gru's life lessons for Agnes: “Life is just like that sometimes. We’re hoping for a unicorn and we get a goat.”) I was also heartwarmed by the girls and by Lucy's efforts to win them over, chortled over the Minions' prison escape, laughed at the "engagement pig" scene, and awwed at Agnes and her adorable goat. And I liked the Gru and Dru dynamic, which was sweet at the core without being saccharine -- the long-lost brother turns out to be a villain (which is such a common trope), but an inept one, and it's not a bad thing exactly, AND he doesn't learn his lesson in the end (of course, it's also a sequel hook). And I did genuinely like that, even after all the hurtful things Gru and Dru had said to each other, as soon as Dru knew the girls were in trouble, no further words were necessary -- he was in on the rescue. And each of the three adults got to play a significant and, like, fitting, part in defeating the bad guy. I also found the villain fun, with all the 80s silliness, especially the Rubik's cube. Randomly, O was the one twig first onto the fact that the new AVL director is voiced by the same person as Gidget from The Secret Life of Pets, which was kind of difficult to unsee once he shared that with us. Anyway, so, yeah! That was unexpectedly entertaining.
And Sunday, the last day of winter break for the rodents, L and O and I went to see The Last Jedi, finally. At the tiny three-screen theater on West Portal. Honestly I was kinda expecting us to be the only people there, like what happened when we'd gone to see GotG2, but there was a line at the box office when we got there, longest I've ever seen (although it turned out most of the people in that line were going to see The Shape of Water or Downsized), and the theater ended up being more than half-full. Coming in just before the previews started, we still were able to grab the seats we would've wanted anyway, and, actually, it was nice to see the movie with other people.
As trailers, we got Alita Battle Angel, which I have zero interest in; the next Jurassic World movie (which, Blue is alive! and the special effects look awesome! I guess we're watching this thing, no matter how dumb it inevitably ends up being), Ready Player One (which looked a lot more fun in this trailer than the teaser I'd previously seen; but they're not seeming to keep much of the 80s love-letter feel of the book, are they? which is fine with me, as that wasn't one of the things I cared about, but if you get rid of that, whats left? L's impression, based on the trailer, was "It's like The Westing Game and Ender's Game", which... XP), and the Infinity War trailer, which I'd already seen. All in all, a pretty good crop!
As for the movie itself: I liked it a lot! L and O both said they liked it more than TFA (L because of the critters, O because it had more action scenes), and I think I liked them about the same, even though they were obviously pretty different in tone. SPOILERS FROM HERE!
I went in spoiled for a bunch of things, but high-level: Luke dying, Kylo Ren killing Snoke, Rey's parents being "nobodies", Poe disobeying orders, Finn/rose -- but without any detail about how these things happened, which I think was a good balance: it prepared me for things I might have found disappointing otherwise, but still left the film interesting and suspenseful.
There was really just one two three things I disliked about the movie, so let me get it out of the way first: the scene where Finn is doing his suicide run at the cannon, and Poe tries to get him to stop, and then Rose crashes into him, knocking him off-course and saving his life, because "That's how we're gonna win. Not fighting what we hate, saving what we love." Which, what. First of all, in a movie chock-full of heroic sacrifice, from Rose's sister falling towards the inferno along with the bombs she managed to release after all, to the Admiral lightspeed-ramming the First Order destroyer (or whatever that was supposed to be; I'm not sure how those sci-fi physics are supposed to work, how is Finn's willingness to do the same thing not, you know, expected and even required? And second, I get the thematic link to what Luke ends up doing to save the Resistance: because he is not physically there, he is, in fact, not actually fighting anyone, but is absolutely saving the thing that he loves (his sister, the rebellion). But Luke has that option because of several very special circumstances (plus he's kind of at the other end of the galaxy, so his OTHER options are limited) -- it does not work as a general strategy! Finally, I dunno if the scene was included specifically so that Finn and Rose could have their kiss/love thing as quickly as possible, but it also really didn't work for me as a set-up to that. I liked Rose! I liked Rose and Finn working together as partners. I did not feel any romantic chemistry between them, either before or during that scene (still feel way more connection between Finn and Rey and Finn and Poe, too, and enjoyed all of the scenes involving them. I don't actively ship Finn/Rey or Finn/Poe, though I do like both ships and the OT3 configuration, so it's not like Finn/Rose is going athwart my OTP. I think it was an objectively weird message and a scene that rang false to me.)
The Leia floating through space scene. I knew it was there from reading other people's reviews, and that people liked it, but based on that I'd expected it to, like, make more sense. Instead I just found it whut-inducing. I know it's supposed to be showing her connection to the Force or whatever, but it just came across to be as dumb.
Wait, no, there is actually one more thing I disliked, which only became clear to me in the procss of writing up my thoughts on the movie: I wish Finn had gotten something more significant to do. Rey gets the badass fight with Snoke's guards and gets to rescue the Resistance at the end. Poe gets the heroic scene at the beginning, which does accomplish what he set out to do, even if Leia isn't happy about the losses. Finn does... what? Gets himself chased and captured nobly a bunch of times, has the attempted self-sacrificing moment which is thwarted... I think, thematically, he and Rose are meant to have relit the spark of Rebellion that Luke is referring to when he is telling Kylo how wrong he is, but it seems like that was mostly Rose with the kiddies?
Moving on to the many things I liked-to-loved about this movie:
- PORGS!!! I knew I would love them, but they're SO CUTE! Spoiling Chewie's appetite and hitching a ride on the Falcon and being generally adorable derpy owl/penguin/pottoo hybrids! (L said: "I want a porg! I want a flock of porgs!" and I said, "A florg," which is what we kept calling a group of porgs after that). The crystal foxes were really pretty and adorable, too.
- Luke. Luke was my least favorite of the original trilogy's heroes, the least interesting to me both when I first watched the movies as a kid and on every rewatch, but here? I think he ended up being my favorite thing about the movie. The he scene at the beginning, where he hears Rey mention the Falcon and sees Chewie -- and no Han; that was a really great, poignant scene, with just a few words. I liked him as Rey's grumpy, reluctant (to put it mildly) teacher, especially the scene where he was trolling her with the leaf, and I loved everything about his confrontation with Kylo, the moment where the pointedly brushes imaginary ash off his lapel after Kylo had his entire army firing on him, the expression with which he says "No" when Kylo asks him if he's come to try to save his soul, and the "Amazing. Every word of what you just said was wrong" (echoing his earlier words to Rey).
- Speaking of, I liked the various parallels between Kylo and Rey, and also between Kylo and Luke: Kylo unable to push the button that would fire to destroy Leia's ship, and someone doing it instead of him -- Luke unable to bring himself to set fire to the Jedi tree like he planned (so Yoda calls down lightning to do it).
- Further speaking of, I liked the new revelations about Kylo Ren's backstory, and Luke's role in his turn to the darkside. I'm glad there was an actual trigger for Ben turning on the Jedi, even though the trigger wasn't something Luke intended to follow through with -- it feels right to me: a moment of weakness on Luke's part absolutely has grave consequences for the galaxy (and a lifetime of guilt for him), but it's also not damnation. And Kylo feels betrayed (as well as having been manipulated by Snoke, of course), but it does make it more plausible to me that he is redeemable, at least in the way Darth Vader was, striking a blow for good with his final act. Oh, and I also liked that after Rey learns the full story, she switches to calling him Ben. I mean, it's not subtle, but these movies don't have to be.
- And speaking of Kylo, the Kylo-and-Hux show was pretty hilarious throughout: the look Kylo gives him when Hux keeps repeating his orders, "Do you think you got him?", the various dirty looks they send each other's way. Hux on his own was pretty hilarious, too, especially during Poe's trolling "phone call".
- The new trio continue to be really charming! I did say above I wish Finn had gotten more to do, but he's still a sweetie and I liked him in both the comic and dramatic moments. Rey is also adorable, and also badass. Her reunion with Finn was the sweetest thing, and I also liked her interaction with Luke and, more unexpectedly to me, with Kylo/Ben. Poe got a ton of screentime, adorable scenes with Finn and BB8, and some odd UST moments with Leia and the other Admiral, but you know what, I'm not complaining (I bet there's fic). I do wish they'd gotten to do more things TOGETHER -- Rey was, understandably, off on her own for most of the movie, but I would've liked to see Poe and Finn spend less time separated, too... And also, for all that they were onscreen for a large portion of the movie, it didn't feel like Poe and Finn were all that integral to the movie -- it really seemed to be the Luke and Kylo and Rey show.
- I also liked the shifty code-breaker dude played by Benicio Del Toro (though I wonder if he'll be back in the sequel to learn some morals, in a sort of Han role), the way he wasn't EVIL or even particularly mean (he gave back Rose's necklace), but he definitely wasn't going to stick his neck out for anybody.
- Throne room battle with the red-clad guards after Kylo sneakily slices Snoke in two? AWESOME action scene, and it was really cool to see Rey and Kylo fighting side by side but not actually becoming allies. I liked the guards' scorpion-tail-like weapons, too. (On the other hand, the action on the red-mineral planet looked pretty, but I kept getting distracted by what the red stuff actually was. But pretty!)
- The casino set was entertaining, and watching it get trashed was also fun.
I understand there's a lot of philosophical angst about the destruction of the Jedi tree and texts, as apparently endorsed by Yoda. Having found some of the Jedi tenets KINDA SKETCHY in the past, I can't say I'm heartbroken by this.
I feel a bit more ambivalent about the reveal (or is it? Kylo Ren is the one who revealed it, while tempting her to the Dark Side, but "you've always known", and she says it herself...) that Rey's parents are nobodies. On the one hand, it is really refreshing that not everything in the galaxy is about the Skywalkers. And having a "Muggleborn" hero is something I'm generally in favor of. On the other hand, narratively the way this was revealed is not very satisfying, so it wouldn't surprise me if there is a further twist coming.
Like everyone else, we're wondering what they're going to do without Carrie Fisher (the "In loving memory of our Princess" in the credits was really sweet, although not too many people joined in with whoever started clapping at that point) in the last movie. My guess is, kill her off dramatically at the start and give whatever role she was going to play in Kylo Ren's arc to Rey, but since they can digitally produce whoever now, maybe they'll just... carry on with their original plans?
I was sitting next to L at the theater, and we are both laid-back enough about these movies that we didn't mind exchanging a bit of quiet snark over the course of the movie. While Kylo and Rey were playing their tug of war with the lightsaber, L whispered to me, "Twin cores -- and she's right, that looked a lot like Harry facing Voldemort (as did Kylo and Ren showing up in each other's minds). After Rey accidentally tumbled the thing of rock on the islanders, I giggled "My cabbages!" to L, after she had whispered, "Toph as a Jedi master" after Luke had smacked Rey's hand with the leaf. And not a fannish reference, but there was this one moment where the odd-looking black ship descends, and L and I turned to each other and said "utyug" [iron, like, to iron clothes] in unison -- made especially hilarious by the fact that there seemed to be things actually ironing something -- or at least making similar motions -- right after XP
*
Catching up on the past couple of days of Snowflake, though I don't have anything momentous to offer there:
Day 5: Recommend a fannish or creative resource.
I've rec'd my favorite non-fandom-specific resources (e.g. Paint.NET) and fandom-specific resources (Babylon 5 Lurker's Guide, still alive and kicking after all these years, the amazing Dragaera timeline and Lyorn Records) in the past years, and don't have any new fandoms or fan-craft approaches that require me to have found different resources. But this one just occurred to me -- and enough years have passed that these may have faded into obscurity despite being well-known at the time:
limyaael's series of posts on fantasy worldbuilding was fascinating to read through even when NOT working on a fantasy novel, and would be very helpful if one were -- or fic with a lot of worldbuilding, too. Here's an off-LJ mirror
Day 6: Leave feedback for a fanwork. Or multiple fanworks. It can be as simple as I liked this to a detailed list of all the things you loved about the fanwork. The key is to leave some sort of feedback.If you've already left feedback in the course of a previous challenge, it totally counts. But you're free to leave more feedback.
I'd done this as part of a previous challenge, but this was a good reminder to go thorugh and comment on the Yuletide stories I'd read in the car, when I couldn't comment real-time (I think I'm caught up now), and commented on a couple more recent things that I found my way to as a result of browsing the other Snowflake posts.
Day 7: In your own space, create a love meme for yourself. Let people tell you how amazing and awesome and loveable you really are.
Oh look, it's my least favorite Snowflake challenge/prompt. :P [cut to avoid harshing anyone's squee]
I do see that is serves a valuable purpose for a lot of people, the same kind of "good stretch" that the other Snowflake challenges are for me -- people who are not comfortable with attention, or have trouble accepting compliments, or expect to be overlooked. (I've browsed the links, and there are some very sweet things being said to people who should definitely hear them!) But for me personally, the "give me love!" "here you go! ♥ ♥" nature of the challenge makes it feel meaningless.
I love you guys, individually and en masse! And/but hopefully I tell you and/or show you this in meaningful, specific, real-time ways (and if I don't do it enough, I should fix THAT). You also tell me and show me this in various ways throughout the year <333 And because of the nature of my fannish output and how I manage my flist, I don't think anybody outside of my flist has anything to contribute to the love-fest that wouldn't be just generic platitudes, and I hate those. So!
The strategy I've evolved for dealing with this day's challenge, therefore, is as follows:
If there's a book you picked up, or poem or fic you read, because I was talking about it, or a community you joined, or a fun meme or icon or silly timewasting game you found, or a random headcanon or phrase you've acquired because of me, directly or indirectly, or anything of this sort which makes you glad that you did, and you feel like telling me about it, please do!
(Since the last time I posted this thing, a couple of years ago, or ever. But also feel totally free to ignore it entirely. Like I said, I'm not a fan of this challenge.)
This entry was originally posted at https://hamsterwoman.dreamwidth.org/1067292.html. Comment wherever you prefer (I prefer LJ).
And Sunday, the last day of winter break for the rodents, L and O and I went to see The Last Jedi, finally. At the tiny three-screen theater on West Portal. Honestly I was kinda expecting us to be the only people there, like what happened when we'd gone to see GotG2, but there was a line at the box office when we got there, longest I've ever seen (although it turned out most of the people in that line were going to see The Shape of Water or Downsized), and the theater ended up being more than half-full. Coming in just before the previews started, we still were able to grab the seats we would've wanted anyway, and, actually, it was nice to see the movie with other people.
As trailers, we got Alita Battle Angel, which I have zero interest in; the next Jurassic World movie (which, Blue is alive! and the special effects look awesome! I guess we're watching this thing, no matter how dumb it inevitably ends up being), Ready Player One (which looked a lot more fun in this trailer than the teaser I'd previously seen; but they're not seeming to keep much of the 80s love-letter feel of the book, are they? which is fine with me, as that wasn't one of the things I cared about, but if you get rid of that, whats left? L's impression, based on the trailer, was "It's like The Westing Game and Ender's Game", which... XP), and the Infinity War trailer, which I'd already seen. All in all, a pretty good crop!
As for the movie itself: I liked it a lot! L and O both said they liked it more than TFA (L because of the critters, O because it had more action scenes), and I think I liked them about the same, even though they were obviously pretty different in tone. SPOILERS FROM HERE!
I went in spoiled for a bunch of things, but high-level: Luke dying, Kylo Ren killing Snoke, Rey's parents being "nobodies", Poe disobeying orders, Finn/rose -- but without any detail about how these things happened, which I think was a good balance: it prepared me for things I might have found disappointing otherwise, but still left the film interesting and suspenseful.
There was really just one two three things I disliked about the movie, so let me get it out of the way first: the scene where Finn is doing his suicide run at the cannon, and Poe tries to get him to stop, and then Rose crashes into him, knocking him off-course and saving his life, because "That's how we're gonna win. Not fighting what we hate, saving what we love." Which, what. First of all, in a movie chock-full of heroic sacrifice, from Rose's sister falling towards the inferno along with the bombs she managed to release after all, to the Admiral lightspeed-ramming the First Order destroyer (or whatever that was supposed to be; I'm not sure how those sci-fi physics are supposed to work, how is Finn's willingness to do the same thing not, you know, expected and even required? And second, I get the thematic link to what Luke ends up doing to save the Resistance: because he is not physically there, he is, in fact, not actually fighting anyone, but is absolutely saving the thing that he loves (his sister, the rebellion). But Luke has that option because of several very special circumstances (plus he's kind of at the other end of the galaxy, so his OTHER options are limited) -- it does not work as a general strategy! Finally, I dunno if the scene was included specifically so that Finn and Rose could have their kiss/love thing as quickly as possible, but it also really didn't work for me as a set-up to that. I liked Rose! I liked Rose and Finn working together as partners. I did not feel any romantic chemistry between them, either before or during that scene (still feel way more connection between Finn and Rey and Finn and Poe, too, and enjoyed all of the scenes involving them. I don't actively ship Finn/Rey or Finn/Poe, though I do like both ships and the OT3 configuration, so it's not like Finn/Rose is going athwart my OTP. I think it was an objectively weird message and a scene that rang false to me.)
The Leia floating through space scene. I knew it was there from reading other people's reviews, and that people liked it, but based on that I'd expected it to, like, make more sense. Instead I just found it whut-inducing. I know it's supposed to be showing her connection to the Force or whatever, but it just came across to be as dumb.
Wait, no, there is actually one more thing I disliked, which only became clear to me in the procss of writing up my thoughts on the movie: I wish Finn had gotten something more significant to do. Rey gets the badass fight with Snoke's guards and gets to rescue the Resistance at the end. Poe gets the heroic scene at the beginning, which does accomplish what he set out to do, even if Leia isn't happy about the losses. Finn does... what? Gets himself chased and captured nobly a bunch of times, has the attempted self-sacrificing moment which is thwarted... I think, thematically, he and Rose are meant to have relit the spark of Rebellion that Luke is referring to when he is telling Kylo how wrong he is, but it seems like that was mostly Rose with the kiddies?
Moving on to the many things I liked-to-loved about this movie:
- PORGS!!! I knew I would love them, but they're SO CUTE! Spoiling Chewie's appetite and hitching a ride on the Falcon and being generally adorable derpy owl/penguin/pottoo hybrids! (L said: "I want a porg! I want a flock of porgs!" and I said, "A florg," which is what we kept calling a group of porgs after that). The crystal foxes were really pretty and adorable, too.
- Luke. Luke was my least favorite of the original trilogy's heroes, the least interesting to me both when I first watched the movies as a kid and on every rewatch, but here? I think he ended up being my favorite thing about the movie. The he scene at the beginning, where he hears Rey mention the Falcon and sees Chewie -- and no Han; that was a really great, poignant scene, with just a few words. I liked him as Rey's grumpy, reluctant (to put it mildly) teacher, especially the scene where he was trolling her with the leaf, and I loved everything about his confrontation with Kylo, the moment where the pointedly brushes imaginary ash off his lapel after Kylo had his entire army firing on him, the expression with which he says "No" when Kylo asks him if he's come to try to save his soul, and the "Amazing. Every word of what you just said was wrong" (echoing his earlier words to Rey).
- Speaking of, I liked the various parallels between Kylo and Rey, and also between Kylo and Luke: Kylo unable to push the button that would fire to destroy Leia's ship, and someone doing it instead of him -- Luke unable to bring himself to set fire to the Jedi tree like he planned (so Yoda calls down lightning to do it).
- Further speaking of, I liked the new revelations about Kylo Ren's backstory, and Luke's role in his turn to the darkside. I'm glad there was an actual trigger for Ben turning on the Jedi, even though the trigger wasn't something Luke intended to follow through with -- it feels right to me: a moment of weakness on Luke's part absolutely has grave consequences for the galaxy (and a lifetime of guilt for him), but it's also not damnation. And Kylo feels betrayed (as well as having been manipulated by Snoke, of course), but it does make it more plausible to me that he is redeemable, at least in the way Darth Vader was, striking a blow for good with his final act. Oh, and I also liked that after Rey learns the full story, she switches to calling him Ben. I mean, it's not subtle, but these movies don't have to be.
- And speaking of Kylo, the Kylo-and-Hux show was pretty hilarious throughout: the look Kylo gives him when Hux keeps repeating his orders, "Do you think you got him?", the various dirty looks they send each other's way. Hux on his own was pretty hilarious, too, especially during Poe's trolling "phone call".
- The new trio continue to be really charming! I did say above I wish Finn had gotten more to do, but he's still a sweetie and I liked him in both the comic and dramatic moments. Rey is also adorable, and also badass. Her reunion with Finn was the sweetest thing, and I also liked her interaction with Luke and, more unexpectedly to me, with Kylo/Ben. Poe got a ton of screentime, adorable scenes with Finn and BB8, and some odd UST moments with Leia and the other Admiral, but you know what, I'm not complaining (I bet there's fic). I do wish they'd gotten to do more things TOGETHER -- Rey was, understandably, off on her own for most of the movie, but I would've liked to see Poe and Finn spend less time separated, too... And also, for all that they were onscreen for a large portion of the movie, it didn't feel like Poe and Finn were all that integral to the movie -- it really seemed to be the Luke and Kylo and Rey show.
- I also liked the shifty code-breaker dude played by Benicio Del Toro (though I wonder if he'll be back in the sequel to learn some morals, in a sort of Han role), the way he wasn't EVIL or even particularly mean (he gave back Rose's necklace), but he definitely wasn't going to stick his neck out for anybody.
- Throne room battle with the red-clad guards after Kylo sneakily slices Snoke in two? AWESOME action scene, and it was really cool to see Rey and Kylo fighting side by side but not actually becoming allies. I liked the guards' scorpion-tail-like weapons, too. (On the other hand, the action on the red-mineral planet looked pretty, but I kept getting distracted by what the red stuff actually was. But pretty!)
- The casino set was entertaining, and watching it get trashed was also fun.
I understand there's a lot of philosophical angst about the destruction of the Jedi tree and texts, as apparently endorsed by Yoda. Having found some of the Jedi tenets KINDA SKETCHY in the past, I can't say I'm heartbroken by this.
I feel a bit more ambivalent about the reveal (or is it? Kylo Ren is the one who revealed it, while tempting her to the Dark Side, but "you've always known", and she says it herself...) that Rey's parents are nobodies. On the one hand, it is really refreshing that not everything in the galaxy is about the Skywalkers. And having a "Muggleborn" hero is something I'm generally in favor of. On the other hand, narratively the way this was revealed is not very satisfying, so it wouldn't surprise me if there is a further twist coming.
Like everyone else, we're wondering what they're going to do without Carrie Fisher (the "In loving memory of our Princess" in the credits was really sweet, although not too many people joined in with whoever started clapping at that point) in the last movie. My guess is, kill her off dramatically at the start and give whatever role she was going to play in Kylo Ren's arc to Rey, but since they can digitally produce whoever now, maybe they'll just... carry on with their original plans?
I was sitting next to L at the theater, and we are both laid-back enough about these movies that we didn't mind exchanging a bit of quiet snark over the course of the movie. While Kylo and Rey were playing their tug of war with the lightsaber, L whispered to me, "Twin cores -- and she's right, that looked a lot like Harry facing Voldemort (as did Kylo and Ren showing up in each other's minds). After Rey accidentally tumbled the thing of rock on the islanders, I giggled "My cabbages!" to L, after she had whispered, "Toph as a Jedi master" after Luke had smacked Rey's hand with the leaf. And not a fannish reference, but there was this one moment where the odd-looking black ship descends, and L and I turned to each other and said "utyug" [iron, like, to iron clothes] in unison -- made especially hilarious by the fact that there seemed to be things actually ironing something -- or at least making similar motions -- right after XP
*
Catching up on the past couple of days of Snowflake, though I don't have anything momentous to offer there:
Day 5: Recommend a fannish or creative resource.
I've rec'd my favorite non-fandom-specific resources (e.g. Paint.NET) and fandom-specific resources (Babylon 5 Lurker's Guide, still alive and kicking after all these years, the amazing Dragaera timeline and Lyorn Records) in the past years, and don't have any new fandoms or fan-craft approaches that require me to have found different resources. But this one just occurred to me -- and enough years have passed that these may have faded into obscurity despite being well-known at the time:
limyaael's series of posts on fantasy worldbuilding was fascinating to read through even when NOT working on a fantasy novel, and would be very helpful if one were -- or fic with a lot of worldbuilding, too. Here's an off-LJ mirror
Day 6: Leave feedback for a fanwork. Or multiple fanworks. It can be as simple as I liked this to a detailed list of all the things you loved about the fanwork. The key is to leave some sort of feedback.If you've already left feedback in the course of a previous challenge, it totally counts. But you're free to leave more feedback.
I'd done this as part of a previous challenge, but this was a good reminder to go thorugh and comment on the Yuletide stories I'd read in the car, when I couldn't comment real-time (I think I'm caught up now), and commented on a couple more recent things that I found my way to as a result of browsing the other Snowflake posts.
Day 7: In your own space, create a love meme for yourself. Let people tell you how amazing and awesome and loveable you really are.
Oh look, it's my least favorite Snowflake challenge/prompt. :P [cut to avoid harshing anyone's squee]
I do see that is serves a valuable purpose for a lot of people, the same kind of "good stretch" that the other Snowflake challenges are for me -- people who are not comfortable with attention, or have trouble accepting compliments, or expect to be overlooked. (I've browsed the links, and there are some very sweet things being said to people who should definitely hear them!) But for me personally, the "give me love!" "here you go! ♥ ♥" nature of the challenge makes it feel meaningless.
I love you guys, individually and en masse! And/but hopefully I tell you and/or show you this in meaningful, specific, real-time ways (and if I don't do it enough, I should fix THAT). You also tell me and show me this in various ways throughout the year <333 And because of the nature of my fannish output and how I manage my flist, I don't think anybody outside of my flist has anything to contribute to the love-fest that wouldn't be just generic platitudes, and I hate those. So!
The strategy I've evolved for dealing with this day's challenge, therefore, is as follows:
If there's a book you picked up, or poem or fic you read, because I was talking about it, or a community you joined, or a fun meme or icon or silly timewasting game you found, or a random headcanon or phrase you've acquired because of me, directly or indirectly, or anything of this sort which makes you glad that you did, and you feel like telling me about it, please do!
(Since the last time I posted this thing, a couple of years ago, or ever. But also feel totally free to ignore it entirely. Like I said, I'm not a fan of this challenge.)
This entry was originally posted at https://hamsterwoman.dreamwidth.org/1067292.html. Comment wherever you prefer (I prefer LJ).