Snowflake Challenge catch-up (days 6-8)
Day 6: In your own space, create a list of at least three fannish things you'd love to receive, something you've wanted but were afraid to ask for - a fannish wish-list of sorts.
I'm really a person of very consistent fannish tastes, so there isn't much change from what this list looked like in 2014-16 or 2018. And any of the things requested in my fandom_stocking are also things that I'd love, of course.
But if I were to go with a top 3 right now, it would be:
1. Dragaera fic or art, in particular Morrolan centric. (Although at least Yuletide did come through this year with two Morrolan-centric fics! :D) Or, really, just the opportunity to talk about this fandom :)
2. Rivers of London art or fic for some of my favorite secondary characters: Peter and Kumar being dorks (now that we have a bit more background info on Kumar, especially), Varvara in all her complicated shades-of-grey glory (interacting with Nightingale, e.g. during Foxglove Summer, or past-fic with her Night Witches comrades or anything in between).
3. Still all the crossovers between my tiny fandoms (art or fic or just a chance to chat about the crossovers): Miles Vorkosigan/River Tam, or Astrid Llewellyn and Peter Grant talking science together, Dragaeran Dragonlords and Elantran Dragons hanging out and matching tempers, Nanny Ogg and Uncle Iroh having tea and/or scumble, Cheris (or Hemiola) and Murderboat watching their shows together. Or fusions, fusions are great too. Everyone in Hogwarts houses! (or Dragaera houses! or Hexarchate factions!), people and their daemons, their dragons, their wolfbrothers/sisters -- it's all good! It would be especially amazing to have crossover art with Vorkosigan, RoL, or Dragaera characters in AU settings, because I've never seen that. And by now we have a canonical Hogwarts sorting for Peter, hey! ;) (Last year this request led to
sunlit_stone writing me a glorious Duv Galeni and William Laurence and Hermione Granger high school AU I never expected to exist outside of my character roulette meme, and it continues to bring joy to my life, so clearly asking for more crossover crack is the way to go!)
Day 7: Stretch yourself a little and try something new. Go play in a new fandom or with a new pairing. Try working in a new medium. Or check out some fanworks that are new to you. (The recs from Day 2 might be a good place to start.)
I was trying to think of what I hadn't yet done recently -- I mean, writing and posting fic for the first time in the age of the internet/this century and participating in Yuletide was a big one. I got into podcasts, both of the fannish discussion variety, and radio drama, in the past year.
Since the Snowflake Challenge started, I read some fic in new-to-me fandoms (Mrs Piggle-Wiggle, Magpie Lord) and with new kinks (collars, which it turns out can work for me pretty well in some scenarios, which was a surprise).
But specifically for this day's challenge, I decided to try some new canons I'd been aware of in various ways. I watched the first four episodes of Aggretsuko, because ikel89 had written a Yuletide fic, figuring there was no better way to stretch than to watch a combination of anime and metal, two genres that are not my thing at all. Yep, still not my thing. But the episodes were short, and K's fic was cute!
And then, over the course of Snowflake discussion,
eglantiere and I talked about Leverage, and I thought it was streaming on Amazon Prime, so I watched the first episode of that -- only to discover the rest of the season(s) seemed to be rent/buy only, annoyingly. This was much more my thing, between heists and trio dynamics. So far I'm finding Parker the most entertaining, but I do like all three (also, I spent the first half the episode frowning at Eliot and going, "is that Lindsey? that's Lindsey, right?" before googling it to give myself peace of mind). And as the episode wore on, I concluded that Hardison is adorable, and also that I enjoy his dynamic with Eliot ("Somebody kiss this man so I don't have to!"). Anyway, I would've been very happy to continue with the show, but looks like I'll probably have to resort to the library for that.
So then, because my first two attempts did not pan out, for different reasons, I decided to give Person of Interest a shot (I've been aware of the fandom for a while via Serpentcast and Tumblr, and then
sunlit_stone's recent post reminded me of its existence, and for a change this was actually a show Netflix had available, so!) I have now watched 5 episodes, staying up until 1 a.m. the night before I was supposed to get up at 5:25 a.m. for the first time in 2.5 weeks, because of course I did. I'm enjoying it so far, even though it's mostly a fairly straightforward mystery/thriller show at the moment. But I like most of the actors, and Jim Caviezel has pretty green eyes (in a certain light) and bruises attractively, and I am a person of simple needs when it comes to TV. I especially liked s1e4, with the doctor and the ambiguous ending and the "GOOOOOOOAAAAL" used as background for an action scene. And, randomly, I had not realized just how heavily the premise of the show was rooted in the post-9/11 world. Anyway, planning to keep watching this, although the long episodes + long seasons are going to be a challenge.
Day 8: In your own space, post self-recs for at least three fanworks that you created.
I like using this day as a roundup for fanworks posted this year, because usually that is around three :P Including this year.
The first one actually grew out of a Snowflake request, pretty much exactly a year ago: Rondeau: A un cher ennemi (Temeraire, G, Napoleon/Laurence, 117 words; Summary:After his defeat, Napoleon composes wistful AU fanfic in the form of a rondeau (like you do).) -- a rondeau, in English (despite the French title, heh), written for
sunlit_stone. This was a new fandom and a new poetic form for me. I found this form quite challenging. but am quite fond of the resulting poem anyway. Interestingly enough, in just one year, it has passed everything else in my works for number of hits (which is admittedly not that difficult, but still). I guess the people want Napoleon/Laurence, and are willing to settle for poetry? :P
And then there was Sinusoidal Elegy (Machineries of Empire, Kel Aurel, sin(x^2), gen, 279 words), written as a
fandom_stocking fill for
extrapenguin. I'm still really, really proud of this one. It was hard, by far the fiddliest poem I've ever written, from a form perspective -- and probably in ways that don't even immediately reigster. (The meter and rhyme schemes are both very rigid, but because they are both so odd, and in part because of the weird layout, I think it takes a while to notice. And there are some internal rhymes between stanzas that I remember putting in for 'scaffolding' that even I can't find now XP)
And the third is the Yuletide story I co-wrote/ghost-wrote with L [my daughter, for passing Snowflake folks], The Little Mole-Maid (Hamster Princess, gen, Harriet Hamsterbone, Wilbur, Mumfrey, 3.2k) as a treat for
the_rck. The full story of how this came to be is here, and since it's so recent, I don't have much more to add. Except to reiterate that L is to blame for all the mole puns, and I just strung what plot there is around them.
Also, I kept thinking of various forms of crack I've produced before, but I think I've linked to them allin the past for Snowflake. Except for this masterpiece: The Fellowship of the Ring as rodents (I was stumped on how to find this post and then realized the most expedient way would be the 'things that are K's fault' tag
*
And, not a Snowflake answer, but related to Snowflake:
hoursgoneby had included, in their Day 6 wishlist: "I still want art/video of the duel between Finrod and Sauron done with duelling guitars", and as soon as I saw that, I was like, "I've got good news and bad news!" Because this is a thing that exists as part of a Russian rock-opera about Finrod, and is a really cool piece which I was originally introduced to by mauvais_pli when we first became friends, lo these many moons ago. Anyway, I figured other folks on my flist may also be interested in this. And my offer to take a crack at translating the Russian stands, should anyone be interested in such a thing.
Here's is a clip from a live performance (the performers are not the ones I like best in these roles but I do quite like Sauron's voice and it's neat to see the blocking and stuff)
Click to viewHere is a vid version with the soundtrack of the original rock-opera I believe:
These guys are just singing without staging or costumes, but I think it's my favorite vocal performance:
And here's a B&W video of a different performance but I think the costumes and makeup are interesting:
And I can't really tell if this is just two guys singing or a modern minimalist staging, but if the latter, then I love the contrast between Sauron's suit and Findor's ratty jeans and ponytail :)
This entry was originally posted at https://hamsterwoman.dreamwidth.org/1098027.html. Comment wherever you prefer (I prefer LJ).