Taskmaster CoC III and Snowflake catchup
I had not been expecting Taskmaster Champion of Champions III so soon, but was glad to get it! And I enjoyed it a lot. Also, whoa, has it really been 150 episodes? It feels like we just had the 100th one with the cake! I think this is my favorite CoC to date, on the whole, though it lacks the iconic moments of triumph and despair from Ed that CoC II had, or Liza's reveal. But this is the first set of 5 series where I liked every series from decently well to A LOT, and with Kiell substituting for Mae, where I also liked every contestant. Like, none of these people were my top favorites on their series -- Kiell was behind Ivo and possibly tied with Jenny, Sophie was a little behind Chris Ramsey, Sarah was behind Mike and Lee, Dara was behind Munya and Sarah Millican and Fern, and Morgana was behind Victoria, Desiree, and Guz for sure and probably about tied with Alan? But CoC 1 had Rob Beckett whom I didn't like watching at all, and CoC II had Richard Herring and Lou Sanders, who were probably my least favorite on their respective series which are also two out of three series I like the least, and there was none of that here. Spoilers from here This was another close one, but unlike CoC II, where I just plain felt like the weakest contestant won by a fluke (series 10 is one of my least favorite series, and Richard Herring is probably my least favorite contestant on s10, but I also feel like he was just objectively less funny and memorable than a lot of people in the CoC II lineup) I thought the close call it came down to between Dara and Sophie was a contest between the right two contenders (Mae would've been more of a threat to Dara, but less entertaining than Kiell, so no regrets on that score). And while I thought Sophie was a bit underscored and Dara a bit overscored here and there, it doesn't feel unfair to have Dara win.
Credits: that was a fun little extra task. I especially enjoyed the story going on with Mae tossing their trophy to Kiell (and his laugh), the appearance of the "ooh my baby" lady, and Morgana randomly galloping on a horse.
Banter: OK, that "slap in the face of Will Smith" crack from Greg made me snort.
Outfits: I kind of love that Dara triumphed while wearing his jumpsuit emblazoned with his most brainfart-y moment from his series (WAIT WHAT); and apparently he'd also added patches for team tasks with his disappointing children -- sand and shopping trolley for the sabotage task, helicopter crashing into mountains for the charades studio task, and the bird they painted that no-one could see for the first team task. I do appreciate Dara's ability to poke fun at himself, which prevents the compatative dad vibes from beinginsufferable. I liked the way Kiell's outfit was in colors that echoed his original one while in all specifics showing that he was standing in for Mae (and everyone making fun of him for being the substitute and not one of the winners continued to be fun throughout for me.) I also liked the way Sophie's outfit was a riff on her original one with the colors (and her studio getup and earrings throughout were impressive as well; I've missed Sophie's bonkers fashion). Oh! and her little Greg & Alex temporary tattoo above her hip -- that was also a thing XD Morgana's tasking outfit was appropriately cat burglar, and her studio dress and high heels were incredibly black widow in her peignoir attempting to seduce the policeman who's come to investigate her latest husband's death, which is to say, on brand (Morgana has grown on me since her series, I find). I don't have anything to say about Sarah Kendall's outfit either in studio or in tasks, but her hair seemed to be a little less overwhelming; still impressive, though!
Prize task: OK, Sarah did deserve the 1 point, but I don't think it was THAT shit a wish? And I thought Morgana's extra hands were way overscored, even though she did sell them charmingly. I also didn't think Dara's wig was that funny, though it was unsettling -- but apparently there was a lot more to it? He said on the podcast that he actually walked out on stage at a show wearing the wig, and there was a bunch of footage of people's reactions, but it was all last minute and in Australia, and the footage got to the UK people too late to use at the taping. Ah well. Sophie leaning into fanfic territory with the couples cosplay (the duck gag XD) was very funny, but I see why it only got 2 points from Greg. Can't wait to see what the fic writers do with it, though! especially with Greg taking Alex's hand. And it was cool to see the prize task from Mae, another of her father's amazing Gepetto projects, and Kiell sold it very well (despite messing up the quote, lol).
Waiter task: This one I didn't twig onto as a repurposed task, but I think Ed is right and this was a riff on the "deliver a pizza to Tom" task from Australia s1, which also used decoys for Tom. Neat to see Andy C under that hat, and a neat range of solutions and pitfalls. Kiell going with the dummy was bold (especially justifying it with reference to Mae's drawn pineapples) but I do think Greg was right to disqualify him. (Greg: "Mae Martin is going to be furious." Kiell: "Kiell's furious! Come on, bruv!") Oh, and trying to get a passing dog to sniff out Alex XD I'm so glad Kiell go to substitute, he's great entertainment value. Rough luck for Morgana that she didn't clap enough, and it was very funny when she said she didn't trust the timers and it turned out that she was right to, because they were 2 minute timers (and Sarah used them -- despite, as Ed pointed out, wearing a watch) and thus took forever -- and still ended up with 3 points, lol, because Taskmaster be like that. The fact that she spentmore time clapping than the others spent doing the whole task is hilarious. Very close time between Sophie and Dara, she with the clever hack of finding Alex first and leading him to the food (and her skipping was also a good angle!), and him with just being competent enough not to spill anything and using his mouth "as a pouch" to not spill the drink -- which Alex did not realize until he'd watched back the footage XD And then he made Alex clap XD Definitely a good task to kick things off!
Hat with handicap two-parter: First, I have to give a shout-out to Kiell for picking something both genuinely a general handicap (satsumas and one hand) and something random enough to be a Taskmaster handicap. (Also, I forgot that "spider in my pocket", the episode namer, was another option he'd thought about, and then further forgot, until I rewatched the setup for the task, that this was an example of how something he picked as a handicap could turn out to be an advantage. I kind of want to know what senario he was envisionins where a spider friend could help him with a task XD) I also thought Sophie's handicap was a GREAT choice -- something that would not actually interfere with her ability to do anything but was still a "penalty", and WOW, Alex REALLY got into it! Starting with calling her "Sarah" immediately That was probably my favorite part of the episode, because he really does not get to abuse the contestants directly (outside of the Qrs Tuvwxyz role this last series), and it was a lot of fun to see him off the leash. Morgana's handicap was INSANE! how did she think she was going to be able to do anything with hands handcuffed behind her back? The fact that she managed to complete the task at all is incredible! I didn't think Dara was abiding by the rules of his handicap with the jazzy snapping, but he said on the podcast that there was a lot of footage of him snapping, they just didn't show it in the edited version of the task, so fine, I guess? I still think he deserved less points for his handicap than the others because he didn't follow it continuously (clever explanation that "jazzy" meant the task was happening beteen the notes). But I do appreciate him being the only one who picked out a hat that went wih his outfit XD And Sarah's handicap could've either completely screwed her or, as it happened, did not affect her performance at all, so I'm not sure how I would've scored that one... Anyway, the grabber thingies were not very interesting, except for Morgana who had to do it like a contortionist, Kiell dragging the statue, which I did not realize came out of the chair, and furrowing the mud with its head in very undignified fashion, was not super effective, but was fun to watch. Dara came up with a clever technicality, and fair play to that, but oh man, I wish Sophie's elaborate thing with ice and hair drier had worked properly, because that was such a cool idea! (If it had worked, she would've won.) Also, how cinematic that the hat she chose was the propeller one that spun under the blow dryer -- what a visual in the sped up version!
Do something stupid: I recognized this as the unused NZ task (during which Urzila broke her collarbone and Guy Montgomery tried to put his dick in a toaster) and figured they'd added the "don't hurt yourself or others" boundary condition after that (which Ed pointed out as well). Morgana went ahead and took a mouthful of paint anyway, but I guess she did spit most of it out? That was both impressively stupid and oddly arresting, so I can't quibble with her win. Or with Kiell getting 1 point for whatever the hell that was XD I thought Sarah was underscored -- throwing her keys in an unknown direction in the brush and then searching for them for over an hour (and getting traumatized by a dead bird) is an IMPRESSIVE commitment to stupidity, come on! I could see the high concept thing Sophie was going for with insulting Greg, but it didn't pay off particularly well for me (also, you kind of can't beat Rhod at this game, he's already done a better version of this with more weight behind it because of the pre-existing relationship with Greg). Dara... there was something very stupid about Dara shooting rubber bands with his forehead for 20 minutes, and it did almost get to performance art levels like Morgana's. But I thought it should've gone Morgana, Sarah, Dara, Sophie, Kiell.
Live task -- categories while avoiding naming Greg's favorite thing: Dara claimed his lapse with repeating "ankle" was due to jet lag, as he'd just returned from down under; OK, fine. Much funnier was Saraph was confidently saying "Georgina" as a G name straight out of the gate and landing on Greg's favorite -- WHAT XD I'm glad Sophie won that one, even though it wasn't quite good enough for the episode/CoC win. Also, the introduction was so funny: "Here they are: the four champions." "Who's going to read it out?" "Not him!" XD
I'm glad there was no "loser" as such, with Kiell and Sarah tying for fourth,and I do feel like Dara-Sophie-Morgana-Sarah/Kiell is a reasonable set of standings.
And now, we've got 3 out of 5 contestants for an eventual hypothetical CoCoC, which seems increasingly likely to actually happen. Sophie would've been a much more interesting addition to that line-up than Dara, but ah well.
Also s17 lineup was announced and once again I don't know any of these people, but I'm sure I'm going to have fun anyway, when the time comes.
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Challenge #6: In your own space, share a favourite piece of original canon (a show, a specific TV episode, a storyline, a book or series, a scene from a movie, etc) and explain why you love it so much.
I'm just going to link to this post about Terra Ignota that I made on DW, to keep everything in one place.
Challenge #7: Make a list of fannish and/or creative resources.
I'm always a bit stumped by this day because my actual fandoms are too tiny to have much in the way of resources, and what there is I tend to link on other days, like in my Dragaera and Terra Ignota promo posts, but then I realized I'd been sort of pointing people at resources in previous Snowflake days (some fannish, some creative, some sort of in-between) and this was a good opportunity to collect them.
Hugo homework: For the nomination phase of the Hugo Awards, I find it hard to come up with the short fiction (short stories and novelettes), since I pretty much don't read it outside of Hugo homework, anthologies (which tend to be too late), and the occasional specific rec. What's been hugely helpful for me there (in addition to recs from my flist), has been Rocket Stack Rank. These guys aggregate a lot of reviews and awards and things for short fiction, and their cumulative rankings based on that seem to really bubble up strong stories to the top, in a way more slate-like recommendations never seem to for me. They also slice the information in other ways that I've found useful, like length (which makes novelettes easier to find), and also by other categories people may find useful, e.g. sub-genre, authors of color, etc. In addition to that, they have info on new/Astounding eligible writers. They also used to do a great thing in aggregating info on cover art as for the year, which was hugely helpful for Pro Artist nominations, but looks like they stopped doing that after 2020; alas, earwax. And I see they also haven't restarted doing lists of editors, which I was hoping they would. But even in its current form I find this to be an invaluable resource.
Poetry submissions: Nothing here is unique, but these were all things I found extremely helpful when I was starting to send out submissions in earnest in 2020, either as a starting point or as an ongoing resource.
Finding places to submit:
- Submission Grinder [Poetry] (it can also be used for fiction). I find the most useful features to be the ability to filter out fee-based submissions as well as contract weirdness (this is checked by default) and also to filter for places that pay an honorarium, for contests, for simultaneous submissions. I don't filter on time to respond, but I do find it a very useful data point when determining in which order to submit to places, e.g., or trying to decide whether a place I've submitted to is going to end up as dead letters. I just use the search functionality without having an account, and appreciated that this is easy to do.
- Curiosity Never Killed the Writer does monthly roundups of paying markets with free submissions and writing contests with no entry fees -- not just for poetry, a lot of these are for fiction, essays, some for published full-length manuscripts, etc. but this is clearly called out in the listings, along with deadlines, who is eligible (there are geographical or age restrictions, e.g.) I've found some cases where the information was not 100% correct (e.g. something was listed as a paying market and it wasn't), or cases where the contract was non-standard or something else odd was going on, so I always try to cross-check the listings with Submission Grinder, but this does turn up some things that don't make it onto Submission Grinder, and thus I do find it to be a useful supplemental source. And because the listings are in deadline order, it's also a good reminder for myself not to miss some deadlines.
Manuscripts and and cover letters templates/examples:
- Shunn manuscript format for poetry (for submitting individual poems / sets of poems to magazines)
- This article has a bunch of good info on poetry manuscript format in general, but I'm linking it specifically for the Downloadable Poetry Manuscript Example (teal button at the bottom of the article) which I found to be a very handy tamplate when I started doing chapbook submissions last year. (There are plenty of other templates out there, but I found it very useful to have a starting point
- Cover letter examples -- I found this particularly useful because several examples are given, including one that was very bare bones and very useful when I was just starting out and didn't have anything else to say, while others became more useful as I built up some publication history, or where I had something specific to add -- that I was submitting a form or topic the journal had particularly requested, or personal background relevant to the poems -- I kind of knew where to put it in the cover letter. The info in there was also useful in writing up my bio, for those submissions and/or publication that request that.
Inspiration:
- NaPoWriMo (I guess GloPoWriMo now) I guess everyone knows about, but I still really enjoy their format and the community come April, but last year I also used:
- Josie Alford's "Write with Josie" prompts/videos. I find her channel quite helpful in general -- the "How to Write a Poem" playlist has her stepping through a number of forms, with examples, and the "How to Get Published" videos are I think how I originally found her channel, and they were educational, too.
Sudoku: So I've been semi-jokingly calling Sudoku my main fandom for the last two years, but it's a proper fandom really, with its own BNFs, inside jokes, transformative works, and soon maybe a convention. And I should explain, we aren't talking the kind of sudoku you find in the paper -- none of these are computer generated puzzles, they were all set by clever humans, and most of them (and all of the ones I'm interested in) are variant sudoku, meaning that in addition to the normal "digits 1-9, no repeating in boxes, rows, columns", there are additional constraints like "digits on this line in the gric strictly increase from one end to the other" or "adjacent digits on this line have a difference of 5 or more", or digits separated by a white dot are consecutive, or "cells a chess knight's move apart can't contain identical digits", or "digits in this group of cells must sum to this specified number" and so on. I did not realize variant sudoku existed, and learning about it (via Yuletide of all things) two years ago rekindled my interest in sudoku, which I'd solved a bunch of and then got bored with in college, into, well, I think my household would say "obsession".
Channels and playlists:
- My gateway drug was the Cracking the Cryptic YouTube channel and specifically the Miracle sudoku which is a great introduction to Simon, and then this puzzle that has 9 million views, from which I proceeded to watch CtC videos daily, until I was ready to tackle variant puzzles on my own. CtC also have a Patreon and a Discord channel and other things, but I've just been sticking to YouTube, which has already taken over my life to a sufficient degree, lol.
- I found the GAS (Genuinely Approachable Sudoku) puzzles to be at the right level when I was first starting out with variant sudoku, and there's a backlog of them available via this CtC playlist in batches of 5, and now via the dedicated Genuinely Approachable Sudoku channel, where the same setters solve each other's puzzles. These are puzzles that would generally take ~10-20 min (even for a beginner) and have only one thing at a time going on in addition to classic sudoku rules, so are a good way to build familiarity with the variant rulesets in isolation.
- The other channel I regularly follow is Bremster's, because he tends to solve puzzles in the QAS (Quite Approachable Sudoku) range, harder than GAS but easier than the monsters the CtC guys are solving a lot of the time -- so he has a good range of "coffee break" and "lunch hour" puzzles on his channel. I find him a less entertaining solver to watch than Simon, but his explanations are clear and helpful. And he also has some great resources for training yourself in variant sudoku, such as the Sudoku Problem series, which don't require solving a full grid but just figuring out something about some targeted cell, come with difficulty ratings, and were very helpful for practicing/cementing some basic tricks about specific variants.
Other:
- Solving in Sven's SudokuPad app has ruined me for all other forms of sudoku (pen and paper or online), because of the versatility and just elegance of design. It taught me to use coloring as a solving technique, and the letter tool is also a powerful addition, as well as the pen tool and its ability to draw in lines (very useful for fog line puzzles and snake puzzles) or borders (for chaos construction where you have to define your own regions). I found the pencil mark checker being on really useful earlier on, though at this point I've turned it off. I miss it sometimes, but my scanning has been improving since I turned it off.
- Don't believe Sudoku is a fandom? There's fic for CtC written for Yuletide 2021, The Devil Went Down to Surrey (gen, 2.8k), which is charming and includes original solvable puzzles (which the CtC guys were linked to and also seemed charmed by) and this gentle parody video, which is a transofrmative work if I've ever seen one.
Also, I had come across the Writing Excuses podcast before, but something about it wasn't working for me earlier. But tabacoychanel pointed me towards a specific expisode which I indeed enjoyed very much, and then discovered that other episodes of season 18 were also very interesting, so I'm stashing them here for my own reference and anyone else's. (The links to the podcast episoes aren't working, but the YouTube ones seem to be OK): Creating Magic Outside of a System (which posits a SMART continuum for magic, an idea I love), Unreliable Narrator, and Writing Inside the Box. (These are seldom 15 minutes as advertised, but at sub-30 min are still a nice length for doing dishes or running errands.)
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Challenge #8: Talk about a current fannish project (fic, art, vid, crochet, funko pop village) (that you are creating or enjoying)
I don't really think about fandom in terms of ongoing projects? I mean, at the moment I'm still tweaking the Terra Ignota post as I fix typos and find minor things to add, but I wouldn't call it a work in progress. There are a couple of things for fandomtrees which are waiting for reveals (Thursday Jan 18, for sure, as all trees now have the minimum number of gifts, yay!), and I may poke at them and/or at something else. I have some projects that are theoretically in progress like kairosimperfect's 30 days meme, but considering it's been almost six years since I made a post about it, I don't think I get to claim that anymore XD
I have some vague plans tomake a few icons at some point, maybe for an appropriate Snowflake Challenge day -- I don't really need more Taskmaster icons, but I want an Ivo one (I'd love a Rhod one, too, but I don't have any ideas for how to encapsulate Rhod in 100x100 pixels XD), and while talking about Some Desperate Glory a whole bunch around Yuletide, it occurred to me that having some quote icons from that wouldn't go amiss. But I wouldn't call this anything so concrete as "plans".
As for following stuff, I guess there's the 3 Sentence Ficathon is happening again, and I've been periodically dipping into it to read.
Credits: that was a fun little extra task. I especially enjoyed the story going on with Mae tossing their trophy to Kiell (and his laugh), the appearance of the "ooh my baby" lady, and Morgana randomly galloping on a horse.
Banter: OK, that "slap in the face of Will Smith" crack from Greg made me snort.
Outfits: I kind of love that Dara triumphed while wearing his jumpsuit emblazoned with his most brainfart-y moment from his series (WAIT WHAT); and apparently he'd also added patches for team tasks with his disappointing children -- sand and shopping trolley for the sabotage task, helicopter crashing into mountains for the charades studio task, and the bird they painted that no-one could see for the first team task. I do appreciate Dara's ability to poke fun at himself, which prevents the compatative dad vibes from beinginsufferable. I liked the way Kiell's outfit was in colors that echoed his original one while in all specifics showing that he was standing in for Mae (and everyone making fun of him for being the substitute and not one of the winners continued to be fun throughout for me.) I also liked the way Sophie's outfit was a riff on her original one with the colors (and her studio getup and earrings throughout were impressive as well; I've missed Sophie's bonkers fashion). Oh! and her little Greg & Alex temporary tattoo above her hip -- that was also a thing XD Morgana's tasking outfit was appropriately cat burglar, and her studio dress and high heels were incredibly black widow in her peignoir attempting to seduce the policeman who's come to investigate her latest husband's death, which is to say, on brand (Morgana has grown on me since her series, I find). I don't have anything to say about Sarah Kendall's outfit either in studio or in tasks, but her hair seemed to be a little less overwhelming; still impressive, though!
Prize task: OK, Sarah did deserve the 1 point, but I don't think it was THAT shit a wish? And I thought Morgana's extra hands were way overscored, even though she did sell them charmingly. I also didn't think Dara's wig was that funny, though it was unsettling -- but apparently there was a lot more to it? He said on the podcast that he actually walked out on stage at a show wearing the wig, and there was a bunch of footage of people's reactions, but it was all last minute and in Australia, and the footage got to the UK people too late to use at the taping. Ah well. Sophie leaning into fanfic territory with the couples cosplay (the duck gag XD) was very funny, but I see why it only got 2 points from Greg. Can't wait to see what the fic writers do with it, though! especially with Greg taking Alex's hand. And it was cool to see the prize task from Mae, another of her father's amazing Gepetto projects, and Kiell sold it very well (despite messing up the quote, lol).
Waiter task: This one I didn't twig onto as a repurposed task, but I think Ed is right and this was a riff on the "deliver a pizza to Tom" task from Australia s1, which also used decoys for Tom. Neat to see Andy C under that hat, and a neat range of solutions and pitfalls. Kiell going with the dummy was bold (especially justifying it with reference to Mae's drawn pineapples) but I do think Greg was right to disqualify him. (Greg: "Mae Martin is going to be furious." Kiell: "Kiell's furious! Come on, bruv!") Oh, and trying to get a passing dog to sniff out Alex XD I'm so glad Kiell go to substitute, he's great entertainment value. Rough luck for Morgana that she didn't clap enough, and it was very funny when she said she didn't trust the timers and it turned out that she was right to, because they were 2 minute timers (and Sarah used them -- despite, as Ed pointed out, wearing a watch) and thus took forever -- and still ended up with 3 points, lol, because Taskmaster be like that. The fact that she spentmore time clapping than the others spent doing the whole task is hilarious. Very close time between Sophie and Dara, she with the clever hack of finding Alex first and leading him to the food (and her skipping was also a good angle!), and him with just being competent enough not to spill anything and using his mouth "as a pouch" to not spill the drink -- which Alex did not realize until he'd watched back the footage XD And then he made Alex clap XD Definitely a good task to kick things off!
Hat with handicap two-parter: First, I have to give a shout-out to Kiell for picking something both genuinely a general handicap (satsumas and one hand) and something random enough to be a Taskmaster handicap. (Also, I forgot that "spider in my pocket", the episode namer, was another option he'd thought about, and then further forgot, until I rewatched the setup for the task, that this was an example of how something he picked as a handicap could turn out to be an advantage. I kind of want to know what senario he was envisionins where a spider friend could help him with a task XD) I also thought Sophie's handicap was a GREAT choice -- something that would not actually interfere with her ability to do anything but was still a "penalty", and WOW, Alex REALLY got into it! Starting with calling her "Sarah" immediately That was probably my favorite part of the episode, because he really does not get to abuse the contestants directly (outside of the Qrs Tuvwxyz role this last series), and it was a lot of fun to see him off the leash. Morgana's handicap was INSANE! how did she think she was going to be able to do anything with hands handcuffed behind her back? The fact that she managed to complete the task at all is incredible! I didn't think Dara was abiding by the rules of his handicap with the jazzy snapping, but he said on the podcast that there was a lot of footage of him snapping, they just didn't show it in the edited version of the task, so fine, I guess? I still think he deserved less points for his handicap than the others because he didn't follow it continuously (clever explanation that "jazzy" meant the task was happening beteen the notes). But I do appreciate him being the only one who picked out a hat that went wih his outfit XD And Sarah's handicap could've either completely screwed her or, as it happened, did not affect her performance at all, so I'm not sure how I would've scored that one... Anyway, the grabber thingies were not very interesting, except for Morgana who had to do it like a contortionist, Kiell dragging the statue, which I did not realize came out of the chair, and furrowing the mud with its head in very undignified fashion, was not super effective, but was fun to watch. Dara came up with a clever technicality, and fair play to that, but oh man, I wish Sophie's elaborate thing with ice and hair drier had worked properly, because that was such a cool idea! (If it had worked, she would've won.) Also, how cinematic that the hat she chose was the propeller one that spun under the blow dryer -- what a visual in the sped up version!
Do something stupid: I recognized this as the unused NZ task (during which Urzila broke her collarbone and Guy Montgomery tried to put his dick in a toaster) and figured they'd added the "don't hurt yourself or others" boundary condition after that (which Ed pointed out as well). Morgana went ahead and took a mouthful of paint anyway, but I guess she did spit most of it out? That was both impressively stupid and oddly arresting, so I can't quibble with her win. Or with Kiell getting 1 point for whatever the hell that was XD I thought Sarah was underscored -- throwing her keys in an unknown direction in the brush and then searching for them for over an hour (and getting traumatized by a dead bird) is an IMPRESSIVE commitment to stupidity, come on! I could see the high concept thing Sophie was going for with insulting Greg, but it didn't pay off particularly well for me (also, you kind of can't beat Rhod at this game, he's already done a better version of this with more weight behind it because of the pre-existing relationship with Greg). Dara... there was something very stupid about Dara shooting rubber bands with his forehead for 20 minutes, and it did almost get to performance art levels like Morgana's. But I thought it should've gone Morgana, Sarah, Dara, Sophie, Kiell.
Live task -- categories while avoiding naming Greg's favorite thing: Dara claimed his lapse with repeating "ankle" was due to jet lag, as he'd just returned from down under; OK, fine. Much funnier was Saraph was confidently saying "Georgina" as a G name straight out of the gate and landing on Greg's favorite -- WHAT XD I'm glad Sophie won that one, even though it wasn't quite good enough for the episode/CoC win. Also, the introduction was so funny: "Here they are: the four champions." "Who's going to read it out?" "Not him!" XD
I'm glad there was no "loser" as such, with Kiell and Sarah tying for fourth,and I do feel like Dara-Sophie-Morgana-Sarah/Kiell is a reasonable set of standings.
And now, we've got 3 out of 5 contestants for an eventual hypothetical CoCoC, which seems increasingly likely to actually happen. Sophie would've been a much more interesting addition to that line-up than Dara, but ah well.
Also s17 lineup was announced and once again I don't know any of these people, but I'm sure I'm going to have fun anyway, when the time comes.
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Challenge #6: In your own space, share a favourite piece of original canon (a show, a specific TV episode, a storyline, a book or series, a scene from a movie, etc) and explain why you love it so much.
I'm just going to link to this post about Terra Ignota that I made on DW, to keep everything in one place.
Challenge #7: Make a list of fannish and/or creative resources.
I'm always a bit stumped by this day because my actual fandoms are too tiny to have much in the way of resources, and what there is I tend to link on other days, like in my Dragaera and Terra Ignota promo posts, but then I realized I'd been sort of pointing people at resources in previous Snowflake days (some fannish, some creative, some sort of in-between) and this was a good opportunity to collect them.
Hugo homework: For the nomination phase of the Hugo Awards, I find it hard to come up with the short fiction (short stories and novelettes), since I pretty much don't read it outside of Hugo homework, anthologies (which tend to be too late), and the occasional specific rec. What's been hugely helpful for me there (in addition to recs from my flist), has been Rocket Stack Rank. These guys aggregate a lot of reviews and awards and things for short fiction, and their cumulative rankings based on that seem to really bubble up strong stories to the top, in a way more slate-like recommendations never seem to for me. They also slice the information in other ways that I've found useful, like length (which makes novelettes easier to find), and also by other categories people may find useful, e.g. sub-genre, authors of color, etc. In addition to that, they have info on new/Astounding eligible writers. They also used to do a great thing in aggregating info on cover art as for the year, which was hugely helpful for Pro Artist nominations, but looks like they stopped doing that after 2020; alas, earwax. And I see they also haven't restarted doing lists of editors, which I was hoping they would. But even in its current form I find this to be an invaluable resource.
Poetry submissions: Nothing here is unique, but these were all things I found extremely helpful when I was starting to send out submissions in earnest in 2020, either as a starting point or as an ongoing resource.
Finding places to submit:
- Submission Grinder [Poetry] (it can also be used for fiction). I find the most useful features to be the ability to filter out fee-based submissions as well as contract weirdness (this is checked by default) and also to filter for places that pay an honorarium, for contests, for simultaneous submissions. I don't filter on time to respond, but I do find it a very useful data point when determining in which order to submit to places, e.g., or trying to decide whether a place I've submitted to is going to end up as dead letters. I just use the search functionality without having an account, and appreciated that this is easy to do.
- Curiosity Never Killed the Writer does monthly roundups of paying markets with free submissions and writing contests with no entry fees -- not just for poetry, a lot of these are for fiction, essays, some for published full-length manuscripts, etc. but this is clearly called out in the listings, along with deadlines, who is eligible (there are geographical or age restrictions, e.g.) I've found some cases where the information was not 100% correct (e.g. something was listed as a paying market and it wasn't), or cases where the contract was non-standard or something else odd was going on, so I always try to cross-check the listings with Submission Grinder, but this does turn up some things that don't make it onto Submission Grinder, and thus I do find it to be a useful supplemental source. And because the listings are in deadline order, it's also a good reminder for myself not to miss some deadlines.
Manuscripts and and cover letters templates/examples:
- Shunn manuscript format for poetry (for submitting individual poems / sets of poems to magazines)
- This article has a bunch of good info on poetry manuscript format in general, but I'm linking it specifically for the Downloadable Poetry Manuscript Example (teal button at the bottom of the article) which I found to be a very handy tamplate when I started doing chapbook submissions last year. (There are plenty of other templates out there, but I found it very useful to have a starting point
- Cover letter examples -- I found this particularly useful because several examples are given, including one that was very bare bones and very useful when I was just starting out and didn't have anything else to say, while others became more useful as I built up some publication history, or where I had something specific to add -- that I was submitting a form or topic the journal had particularly requested, or personal background relevant to the poems -- I kind of knew where to put it in the cover letter. The info in there was also useful in writing up my bio, for those submissions and/or publication that request that.
Inspiration:
- NaPoWriMo (I guess GloPoWriMo now) I guess everyone knows about, but I still really enjoy their format and the community come April, but last year I also used:
- Josie Alford's "Write with Josie" prompts/videos. I find her channel quite helpful in general -- the "How to Write a Poem" playlist has her stepping through a number of forms, with examples, and the "How to Get Published" videos are I think how I originally found her channel, and they were educational, too.
Sudoku: So I've been semi-jokingly calling Sudoku my main fandom for the last two years, but it's a proper fandom really, with its own BNFs, inside jokes, transformative works, and soon maybe a convention. And I should explain, we aren't talking the kind of sudoku you find in the paper -- none of these are computer generated puzzles, they were all set by clever humans, and most of them (and all of the ones I'm interested in) are variant sudoku, meaning that in addition to the normal "digits 1-9, no repeating in boxes, rows, columns", there are additional constraints like "digits on this line in the gric strictly increase from one end to the other" or "adjacent digits on this line have a difference of 5 or more", or digits separated by a white dot are consecutive, or "cells a chess knight's move apart can't contain identical digits", or "digits in this group of cells must sum to this specified number" and so on. I did not realize variant sudoku existed, and learning about it (via Yuletide of all things) two years ago rekindled my interest in sudoku, which I'd solved a bunch of and then got bored with in college, into, well, I think my household would say "obsession".
Channels and playlists:
- My gateway drug was the Cracking the Cryptic YouTube channel and specifically the Miracle sudoku which is a great introduction to Simon, and then this puzzle that has 9 million views, from which I proceeded to watch CtC videos daily, until I was ready to tackle variant puzzles on my own. CtC also have a Patreon and a Discord channel and other things, but I've just been sticking to YouTube, which has already taken over my life to a sufficient degree, lol.
- I found the GAS (Genuinely Approachable Sudoku) puzzles to be at the right level when I was first starting out with variant sudoku, and there's a backlog of them available via this CtC playlist in batches of 5, and now via the dedicated Genuinely Approachable Sudoku channel, where the same setters solve each other's puzzles. These are puzzles that would generally take ~10-20 min (even for a beginner) and have only one thing at a time going on in addition to classic sudoku rules, so are a good way to build familiarity with the variant rulesets in isolation.
- The other channel I regularly follow is Bremster's, because he tends to solve puzzles in the QAS (Quite Approachable Sudoku) range, harder than GAS but easier than the monsters the CtC guys are solving a lot of the time -- so he has a good range of "coffee break" and "lunch hour" puzzles on his channel. I find him a less entertaining solver to watch than Simon, but his explanations are clear and helpful. And he also has some great resources for training yourself in variant sudoku, such as the Sudoku Problem series, which don't require solving a full grid but just figuring out something about some targeted cell, come with difficulty ratings, and were very helpful for practicing/cementing some basic tricks about specific variants.
Other:
- Solving in Sven's SudokuPad app has ruined me for all other forms of sudoku (pen and paper or online), because of the versatility and just elegance of design. It taught me to use coloring as a solving technique, and the letter tool is also a powerful addition, as well as the pen tool and its ability to draw in lines (very useful for fog line puzzles and snake puzzles) or borders (for chaos construction where you have to define your own regions). I found the pencil mark checker being on really useful earlier on, though at this point I've turned it off. I miss it sometimes, but my scanning has been improving since I turned it off.
- Don't believe Sudoku is a fandom? There's fic for CtC written for Yuletide 2021, The Devil Went Down to Surrey (gen, 2.8k), which is charming and includes original solvable puzzles (which the CtC guys were linked to and also seemed charmed by) and this gentle parody video, which is a transofrmative work if I've ever seen one.
Also, I had come across the Writing Excuses podcast before, but something about it wasn't working for me earlier. But tabacoychanel pointed me towards a specific expisode which I indeed enjoyed very much, and then discovered that other episodes of season 18 were also very interesting, so I'm stashing them here for my own reference and anyone else's. (The links to the podcast episoes aren't working, but the YouTube ones seem to be OK): Creating Magic Outside of a System (which posits a SMART continuum for magic, an idea I love), Unreliable Narrator, and Writing Inside the Box. (These are seldom 15 minutes as advertised, but at sub-30 min are still a nice length for doing dishes or running errands.)
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Challenge #8: Talk about a current fannish project (fic, art, vid, crochet, funko pop village) (that you are creating or enjoying)
I don't really think about fandom in terms of ongoing projects? I mean, at the moment I'm still tweaking the Terra Ignota post as I fix typos and find minor things to add, but I wouldn't call it a work in progress. There are a couple of things for fandomtrees which are waiting for reveals (Thursday Jan 18, for sure, as all trees now have the minimum number of gifts, yay!), and I may poke at them and/or at something else. I have some projects that are theoretically in progress like kairosimperfect's 30 days meme, but considering it's been almost six years since I made a post about it, I don't think I get to claim that anymore XD
I have some vague plans tomake a few icons at some point, maybe for an appropriate Snowflake Challenge day -- I don't really need more Taskmaster icons, but I want an Ivo one (I'd love a Rhod one, too, but I don't have any ideas for how to encapsulate Rhod in 100x100 pixels XD), and while talking about Some Desperate Glory a whole bunch around Yuletide, it occurred to me that having some quote icons from that wouldn't go amiss. But I wouldn't call this anything so concrete as "plans".
As for following stuff, I guess there's the 3 Sentence Ficathon is happening again, and I've been periodically dipping into it to read.