sky's journal

Day 15

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

Oh! I don't know what to say that hasn't already been said! I wish I could be terribly eloquent here. Um.

Thank you to everyone who has commented and interacted with me over the past two weeks. It's always fantastic to get that notification email, isn't it? ♥ To my friends, old and new, I'm so excited to keep getting to know you, and reading your posts, and celebrating your achievements. If we can hold onto the positivity and engagement we've cultivated during Snowflake, we're well on our way to making 2018 a great year for fandom.

Day 10

In your own space, share your love for a trope, cliché, kink, motif, or theme. (Or a few!) Tell us what makes it work for you, and why it appeals to you so much. Talk about what you like to see in fanworks featuring that theme most.

Hurt/Comfort - and I really do like both, although whump no comfort is more common and that's fine, I'll take that. My favourite stories, though, take as much time and detail describing the recovery process as the torture/accident/injury phase. And that's difficult, I know that, as a writer, because it feels like it becomes necessary to know a little bit of medical stuff in order to fix the hurt character...but honestly, I don't mind how accurate it is. I'm not going to know in reality all the complications that might follow from a gunshot wound - but I'd like there to be complications, and all the angst that the characters go through trying to deal with that...it's my jam, okay. Ideally, I don't want the story to just end when they are rescued. (Although the rescuing part itself is always excellent. XD)

Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence. SO MANY of my stories are this. Change one thing about canon and what cascade of consequences does that produce? It probably fixes things and breaks others, and navigating the choices made by canon writers and exploring the unseen paths is what fanfic is all about, for me.

Day 11

Share a book/song/movie/tv show/fanwork/etc that changed your life.

LIFE ON MARS (UK). I've met my best friends through this tv show. And it has plenty of whump in canon - Sam Tyler is in an RTA in Episode One and spends the rest of the show in a coma in 2006 while still doing his job in 1973...and sometimes he feels medical effects filtering through to his body. It's so damn good, okay. And the music is heaven. It introduced me to so much music that I probably would never have heard otherwise.

Day 12

In your own space, create a fanwork. Make a podfic, an icon, a sketch, a meta, or a rec list. Arts and crafts. Cross stitch. Draft an essay about a particular medium. Put together a picspam or a fanmix. Write a review of a book you love, a ship manifesto, a you-should-be-listening-to-this-band essay. Create something.

I've been wanting to try making a fic cover for ages, so here's my first attempt, for one of my favourite Harold/Grace, Harold/John first kiss stories:

Day 8

In your own space, share a favorite piece of original canon (a TV episode, a song, a favorite interview, a book, a scene from a movie, etc) and explain why you love it so much.

Here are some moments from Person of Interest that bring me joy.

( 7 Person of Interest clips under the cut )

Day 6

Leave feedback for a fanwork.

Fandom: Fingersmith
Title: if we must be symbolic
Wordcount: 1047
Pairing: Maud/Sue

Hah, I really needed this challenge to give me a poke to just do the thing instead of being shy. But I'm still lskjdlaskjd. So nervous. I don't know why. I love leaving detailed comments on AO3 generally. There's just something extra intimidating about a) the tiny size of this fandom and b) the author's evidently high skill.

Day 4

In your own space, create a fannish wishlist. No limits on size or type of fanwork; just tell us what you’d like to see.

- Fanart of my Person of Interest fic. Particularly Come Away With Me (the lakeside confession scene in Chapter 2) or Color is Awesome (Root paints John's nails). If anything at all inspires you, I would be thrilled!

- More people to watch Lip Service and write fix-its / create any kind of fanwork for it. It has Scottish/British/Australian lesbians/wlw. And it's only 12 episodes long. I ship Tess/Lexy, Sam/Cat and Frankie/Sadie, but seriously, anything would be good!

- More fic for my Lost OTP: Ben Linus/John Locke

- Fellow podfic creators / listeners - help me out? How do you organise your podfics? How do you title your original takes vs edited tracks? How do you decide what order you listen to podfics? (This is assuming somebody else is like me and over time has downloaded a bunch (300+) of files with no organisation whatsoever, instead of saving them one at a time.) I've only just got around to creating a 'To Listen' folder and a 'Done' folder and putting the fandom in the filenames. I'm trying to get into a regular habit of listening instead of just whenever I can't sleep, and some form of organisation seems like the first step.

Day 2

In your own space, share a favorite memory about fandom: the first time you got into fandom, the last time a fanwork touched your heart, crazy times with fellow fans (whether on-line or off-line), a lovely comment you’ve received or have left for someone.

Oh gosh, so many memories! The one that springs to mind re. crazy times with fellow fans offline is the Life on Mars Manchester meetup. Six of us (from multiple countries) arranged to rent a flat for a week. We walked a ridiculous amount, searching for filming locations, and visited the police museum, and went second-hand cosplay shopping, and it was just. Awesome. I'm so, so lucky to have been a part of that. So many in-jokes! Such a sense of belonging and friendship and SO much laughter. I'm still in touch with some, have lost track of others. I dearly hope that wherever you folks are, you remember that week as fondly as I have. 

Last month, I sent fannish greeting cards to my friends and they responded by taking a photo of their card and describing how happy they were to open it, and that is the bestttttt feeling. 

Since 2015, I've been keeping a gratitude list in a spreadsheet and I record all my favourite comments there. If you're a writer, I really recommend doing this. When you feel less than confident about your writing, you can read through that list again. It helps. It really helps.

Catching up on all the days I missed, minus Day 5 and Day 8, because I couldn't quite do those.



( Read more... )

Day 6

In your own space, create a fanwork. A drabble, a ficlet, a podfic, or an icon, art or meta or a rec list. A picspam. Something.

So it HAD to be a drabble.

The Love In His Eyes

He can cover his mouth with a hand to hide a smile. The distance of a phone link can disguise butterflies, an offhand quip to reassure himself that his voice remains level, that he's holding onto decorum. He's not afraid of sentiment, not anymore, but he gets the sense Finch finds it unseemly. John lifts the lid only when Harold needs it, a reminder that Reese needs him, that he is his 'someone new'.

When their gazes meet, it all surfaces. There's no burying everything he feels. Harold's eyes drink it in and reflect his love back to him, multiplied.

Day 2

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.

1) A Person of Interest Reese/Finch fanvid to My List by The Killers. The lyrics, in my opinion, are pretty damn perfect. Starts out Reese PoV and then switches to Finch at 'Don't give the ghost up'.

2) Vidding advice/tutorials. Please please please. I have Adobe Premiere Pro CS3 but no clue how to use it. I haven't had much luck getting clips into there. It just keeps saying all the filetypes aren't compatible.

3) Person of Interest Harold/Nathan fanart (or even fic). Remember this scene in 1x12 Legacy where Finch goes back to Nathan's old loft with Will? It took me ages to realise that's a swimming pool, and Harold stands and gazes out at it for long enough that...my slasher's imagination started to wander. But I can't draw. So I would adore it if something could exist of Nathan and Harold sitting in that pool.