Snowflake Challenge and Fandom Trees -- all the winter fannish things! :D
More Snowflake:
Challenge #2: In your own space (or their own space) interact with someone new.
I did this, both on the day of the challenge itself, and before, and after, in my space and in theirs, and off DW, and also reconnected with someone whom I haven't seen online in years, because this is one thing Snowflake is always really good for. I've picked up one new flister as a result, and have had interesting conversations with several other people (*waves*), and am looking forward to getting to know their fannish selves better over the rest of the month :)
Challenge #3: Guess Who's Coming to Dinner
In your own space, tell us who, from one of your fandoms, would you most want to have dinner with (or tea, or a random afternoon visit), And why? This could be a creator, an actor, a costumer, a set designer, a director, a character, a composer, anybody! What would you talk about? What are you dying to know?
Ooh, a brand new Snowflake question, and a really fun one!
With fictional characters, I find it a bit hard, because mostly my favorites tend to be people I'd find more frustrating than fun to hang out with in real life -- they're intense, and/or assholes, or we wouldn't have a ton in common to actually talk about, since they lead much more exciting lives than I do. Or they are perfectly lovely people, but I don't want to feel like I have to try to help with their problems; or I would just rather watch them interact with other characters from their canon (or have fun crossover interactions) rather than try to talk to them myself. But actually there is one fictional person I can think of that I'd happily grab a pint with: Peter Grant from Rivers of London. I like Peter a lot as a person, and from the multiple books of first-person narration, I know he's a fun guy to listen to, and I'd love to hear more about his comparative thaumaturgy theories and attempts to quantify magic, as well as any weird bollocks incidents he wanted to share with me. And we have several fandoms in common (Discworld, Harry Potter, LotR, Avatar: the Last Airbender at a minimum), so we could also just talk about those things.
But really, I do think I would prefer to have the chance to talk to a non-fictional person involved in my canons, which basically means the author, since all my major fandoms are book fandoms. I don't necessarily want to talk to all authors of things I love; there are plenty where I would just prefer to let their books speak for them. And author interaction is still something I'm nervous about, because I feel this Ravenclaw pressure to be "on" and show off what a clever reader I am, which is needlessly stressful for me and probably annoying for the author, so I do try to temper that, but the Ravenclaw is strong. But I have made a lot of progress from mumbling indistinctly at Ursula LeGuin when I had the chance to attend a reading of hers in college to having, like, an actual back-and-forth conversation in which information was exchanged with other authors I admire, like Ada Palmer (at Worldcon 2018) and Sarah Pinsker (2020, at a virtual con). If time travel is a possibility, I would love to be able to sit down with Tolkien and just listen to him talk about languages and language creation, or "fairy stories", or anything to do with his world. (Having made sure I visited the site of every house he'd ever lived in in Oxford and every college he'd been associated with there, this is really a creator to whom I could not have too much exposure :P) I have empirically proven to myself that there is no topic on which Ada Palmer could discourse that I would not find fascinating, so a couple of hours to listen to her talk would be also great -- and she is clearly one of those authors who has an incredibly large iceberg of worldbuilding knowledge below the tip you see in the books, and I find the world of Terra Ignota so fascinating, any part of it she chose to share in conversation would be great. From hearing her at panels and interviews, Rachel Hartman (author of Seraphina) talks about her world and her characters in a way that really resonates with me -- with a lot of humor and understanding and this long-standing familiarity, and I have the feeling she would be a really interesting and easy person to talk to.
Having browsed some answers other people have posted made me realize that there was a whole third category here I hadn't thought of: fandom people, not just canon creators. Of the people I haven't had any significant interactions with, I'd love to sit down with the trio behind the Be The Serpent podcast (I did actually get to meet two thirds of it at Worldcon 2018, but that was, like, "love your work" and hallway picture level of interaction, not a chance to talk). One of the reasons this podcast works so well for me is that it really evokes the feeling of sitting with a couple of really good friends and talking about fannish things, jumping from shared fandom to shared fandom, drawing interesting parallels and giggling at nonsense. And most of the time when I'm listening to the episodes, I want to interrupt the conversation and go, "Ooh! That makes me think of X in book Y! Have you read that one? Don't you think it's another great example of the thing you're talking about?" (There is a Discord server for the podcast on which I'm sure discussions like this actually do take place, but it's not actually the same, and also, after having my kids try to Explain Discord to me repeatedly, I think I might just be too old for Discord XD)
And of course there are many fandom friends who annoyingly live too far away to be able to just have dinner with them (even at times where it's possible to have dinner with other people). But I do hope we'll manage that at some point <33
*
fandomtrees reveals were today, and it's been really lovely getting to see not just my own gifts (which are awesome, and detailed below), but what other people got, and what my friends made, and getting comments on the various small things I left in people's trees over the last couple of weeks.
My presents included several yummy-sounding recipes (cookies which a scalable use for shortening! and some very fancy pastries with ingredients it would have never occurred to me to combine, but which sound very intriguing) and two great stories in my small beloved fandoms:
- more awesome Dragaera fic from
sysann: All is fair... (Vlad/Morrolan, M), full of banter and Vlad snark and delightful canon details and kinky interactions, which are all things I cannot get enough of!
- a lovely Discworld fic from
gullwhacker: Threads from the Misshapen Sweater of Time (Esme Weatherwax/Mustrum Ridcully, G, 1.2k) -- a fascinating and cozy road-not-taken AU, with footnotes!
which were both wonderful stories to gulp down in-between meetings today, and then reread and savor at leisure as soon as I was done with work.
On the gifting side of
fandomtrees, I scattered some recs and shared a couple of interesting recipes here and there, and also did a few more creative things.
First, a Dragaera acrostic for
sysann, on the subject of Sethra & Iceflame:
Inside Dzur Mountain's hidden heart,
Concealed by legend and her art,
Enchantress wields her icy flame
For Empire and the world; her name
Lauded some ages, others scorned
Among those whom she wisely warned.
Mortals, gods fade and Houses fall --
Eternal, Sethra surveys all.
And a handful of icons for various folks:
For
sysann (and let's be honest, myself), an icon (+alt) of our joint favorite quote from Baron of Magister Valley:
||
For
narya_flame, some Yavanna icons cropped from this absolutely gorgeous art:
||
||
For
sheron, some Harry & Lash icons for The Dresden Files (which is my favorite of Harry's relationships, honestly):
||
||
||
Art credit:
- sketch by Dan Dos Santos
- aerowan on DeviantArt
- David Vargo
- olieart on DeviantArt
And for
thisbluespirit, who was my catalyst and guide into B7 last year, some quote icons of the relationships we both like on the show: Vila & Avon and Avon/Servalan (and two Blake/Avon icons just for me, heh, since I still haven't settled on a B7 icon for my own use):
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Alt:
This entry was originally posted at https://hamsterwoman.dreamwidth.org/1139660.html. Comment wherever you prefer (I prefer LJ).
Challenge #2: In your own space (or their own space) interact with someone new.
I did this, both on the day of the challenge itself, and before, and after, in my space and in theirs, and off DW, and also reconnected with someone whom I haven't seen online in years, because this is one thing Snowflake is always really good for. I've picked up one new flister as a result, and have had interesting conversations with several other people (*waves*), and am looking forward to getting to know their fannish selves better over the rest of the month :)
Challenge #3: Guess Who's Coming to Dinner
In your own space, tell us who, from one of your fandoms, would you most want to have dinner with (or tea, or a random afternoon visit), And why? This could be a creator, an actor, a costumer, a set designer, a director, a character, a composer, anybody! What would you talk about? What are you dying to know?
Ooh, a brand new Snowflake question, and a really fun one!
With fictional characters, I find it a bit hard, because mostly my favorites tend to be people I'd find more frustrating than fun to hang out with in real life -- they're intense, and/or assholes, or we wouldn't have a ton in common to actually talk about, since they lead much more exciting lives than I do. Or they are perfectly lovely people, but I don't want to feel like I have to try to help with their problems; or I would just rather watch them interact with other characters from their canon (or have fun crossover interactions) rather than try to talk to them myself. But actually there is one fictional person I can think of that I'd happily grab a pint with: Peter Grant from Rivers of London. I like Peter a lot as a person, and from the multiple books of first-person narration, I know he's a fun guy to listen to, and I'd love to hear more about his comparative thaumaturgy theories and attempts to quantify magic, as well as any weird bollocks incidents he wanted to share with me. And we have several fandoms in common (Discworld, Harry Potter, LotR, Avatar: the Last Airbender at a minimum), so we could also just talk about those things.
But really, I do think I would prefer to have the chance to talk to a non-fictional person involved in my canons, which basically means the author, since all my major fandoms are book fandoms. I don't necessarily want to talk to all authors of things I love; there are plenty where I would just prefer to let their books speak for them. And author interaction is still something I'm nervous about, because I feel this Ravenclaw pressure to be "on" and show off what a clever reader I am, which is needlessly stressful for me and probably annoying for the author, so I do try to temper that, but the Ravenclaw is strong. But I have made a lot of progress from mumbling indistinctly at Ursula LeGuin when I had the chance to attend a reading of hers in college to having, like, an actual back-and-forth conversation in which information was exchanged with other authors I admire, like Ada Palmer (at Worldcon 2018) and Sarah Pinsker (2020, at a virtual con). If time travel is a possibility, I would love to be able to sit down with Tolkien and just listen to him talk about languages and language creation, or "fairy stories", or anything to do with his world. (Having made sure I visited the site of every house he'd ever lived in in Oxford and every college he'd been associated with there, this is really a creator to whom I could not have too much exposure :P) I have empirically proven to myself that there is no topic on which Ada Palmer could discourse that I would not find fascinating, so a couple of hours to listen to her talk would be also great -- and she is clearly one of those authors who has an incredibly large iceberg of worldbuilding knowledge below the tip you see in the books, and I find the world of Terra Ignota so fascinating, any part of it she chose to share in conversation would be great. From hearing her at panels and interviews, Rachel Hartman (author of Seraphina) talks about her world and her characters in a way that really resonates with me -- with a lot of humor and understanding and this long-standing familiarity, and I have the feeling she would be a really interesting and easy person to talk to.
Having browsed some answers other people have posted made me realize that there was a whole third category here I hadn't thought of: fandom people, not just canon creators. Of the people I haven't had any significant interactions with, I'd love to sit down with the trio behind the Be The Serpent podcast (I did actually get to meet two thirds of it at Worldcon 2018, but that was, like, "love your work" and hallway picture level of interaction, not a chance to talk). One of the reasons this podcast works so well for me is that it really evokes the feeling of sitting with a couple of really good friends and talking about fannish things, jumping from shared fandom to shared fandom, drawing interesting parallels and giggling at nonsense. And most of the time when I'm listening to the episodes, I want to interrupt the conversation and go, "Ooh! That makes me think of X in book Y! Have you read that one? Don't you think it's another great example of the thing you're talking about?" (There is a Discord server for the podcast on which I'm sure discussions like this actually do take place, but it's not actually the same, and also, after having my kids try to Explain Discord to me repeatedly, I think I might just be too old for Discord XD)
And of course there are many fandom friends who annoyingly live too far away to be able to just have dinner with them (even at times where it's possible to have dinner with other people). But I do hope we'll manage that at some point <33
*
fandomtrees reveals were today, and it's been really lovely getting to see not just my own gifts (which are awesome, and detailed below), but what other people got, and what my friends made, and getting comments on the various small things I left in people's trees over the last couple of weeks.
My presents included several yummy-sounding recipes (cookies which a scalable use for shortening! and some very fancy pastries with ingredients it would have never occurred to me to combine, but which sound very intriguing) and two great stories in my small beloved fandoms:
- more awesome Dragaera fic from
sysann: All is fair... (Vlad/Morrolan, M), full of banter and Vlad snark and delightful canon details and kinky interactions, which are all things I cannot get enough of!
- a lovely Discworld fic from
gullwhacker: Threads from the Misshapen Sweater of Time (Esme Weatherwax/Mustrum Ridcully, G, 1.2k) -- a fascinating and cozy road-not-taken AU, with footnotes!
which were both wonderful stories to gulp down in-between meetings today, and then reread and savor at leisure as soon as I was done with work.
On the gifting side of
fandomtrees, I scattered some recs and shared a couple of interesting recipes here and there, and also did a few more creative things.
First, a Dragaera acrostic for
sysann, on the subject of Sethra & Iceflame:
Inside Dzur Mountain's hidden heart,
Concealed by legend and her art,
Enchantress wields her icy flame
For Empire and the world; her name
Lauded some ages, others scorned
Among those whom she wisely warned.
Mortals, gods fade and Houses fall --
Eternal, Sethra surveys all.
And a handful of icons for various folks:
For
sysann (and let's be honest, myself), an icon (+alt) of our joint favorite quote from Baron of Magister Valley:
||
For
narya_flame, some Yavanna icons cropped from this absolutely gorgeous art:
||
||
For
sheron, some Harry & Lash icons for The Dresden Files (which is my favorite of Harry's relationships, honestly):
||
||
||
Art credit:
- sketch by Dan Dos Santos
- aerowan on DeviantArt
- David Vargo
- olieart on DeviantArt
And for
thisbluespirit, who was my catalyst and guide into B7 last year, some quote icons of the relationships we both like on the show: Vila & Avon and Avon/Servalan (and two Blake/Avon icons just for me, heh, since I still haven't settled on a B7 icon for my own use):
||
||
||
||
||
||
||
||
||
||
||
Alt:
This entry was originally posted at https://hamsterwoman.dreamwidth.org/1139660.html. Comment wherever you prefer (I prefer LJ).