snowflake challenge #11-15: the final frontier

[serpentinemalign]

hey! hope you're doing good.

today has been really good for me, so i am personally on a high. my work performance review was glowing, and i got some delicious food and coffee after to celebrate! i also tackled some big brave medical anxieties.

we've been watching classic doctor who, which neither of us have experienced before. i LOVE it. it is so silly, but also so cozy and strangely low stakes? i love the goofy SFX and how funny and abrupt the cliffhangers can be. it's so cute. i am also in deep deep love with delgado master. (i have loved every version of the master that i have experienced, but his version really was made for me and my adoration of campy hypnotism scenarios.) like. sir. i think perhaps designing a whoniverse self-version of my self-insert is in order so i can draw cute selfship 🤔

let's finish up the snowflake challenge! thanks to the mods for hosting it this year <3

#11: In your own space, create a fanwork. PRESENTING FOR THE FIRST TIME: my fanmix for robert/ryan. from the office US. technically not a 'new' fanwork, but this is my publication and ordering of this fanmix for the first time.

i love fandom playlists. through listening to this playlist i figured out things like, i think they actually met while ryan was a Big Shot in new york. but they had no idea, which makes their frosty canonical relationship extra painful. they have an air of familiarity about them... they were just on either end of the gloryhole, much too drugged up to notice. <3

my kz, ur bf -- everything everything

randy -- justice

big time -- peter gabriel

i do coke -- kill the noise with feed me

failing in a cool way -- louis cole

jaws on repeat (life on hold) -- orbs

casanova -- major parkinson

#12: Tell Us about a Personal Win.

last year, after several years of making no music (or making music that dissatisfied me or never finished), i got back, properly, into making music.

i bought a second-hand keyboard and learned the basics of fl studio, because i wanted to not wrestle with either insufficient freeware or cracked copies, and tbh as i get older and get familiar with Being The Product... i wanna support software that actually lets you buy and own it properly with lifetime updates, instead of forcing you into a subscription model? idk. (not to be pretentious. but it is shocking how many DAWs and scoring software do not allow irregular time signatures. why!!!!!!)

i am utterly thrilled to have done this. i have sooooo many projects on the go now. <3 it's so cool. im contemplating a virtual band, im making a cover album, im making unhinged video game music. i love it. and the break has ultimately made me much better at knowing what i like and not just going with what i think will sound good to others. my music is unapologetically mine and, even though i still have plenty to learn about things my education didn't cover (jazz harmony, arranging and composing for lots of instruments i dont play, production/mixing/mastering) i know it fucks hard -to me-. it feels like a dream. i thought my relationship to making music (and not just appreciating the music of others) was destroyed, which felt like SUCH a waste after spending so long studying music as a kid. i never knew this loving and happy relationship was possible.

i think the first inkling that this was maybe something i wanted to do, and didnt just feel pressured to do, was remembering being a kid, long before lessons and exams and parental/teacher expectations. i would love recording songs on the little sequencer that my parents keyboard had. i felt truly happy doing that.

13: Make a rec list of fanworks!

this is something i struggled with both last year and this year. i love experiencing lots of fanworks but i am not very good at 'curation' i suppose? to some degree i feel a little uneasy with it because what i love about fandom is the community aspect but i sense that it is so easy to become a fan Consumer instead of part of a reciprocal community.

and to some extent being silent about fanworks i like is maybe even less community minded. but idk.

anyway, rather than a reclist i just wanted to shout out my lovely pal nyhti on tumblr, who has the unenviable task of holding up the hugo strange fandom on their shoulders. i am utterly obsessed with how they draw him and often find myself checking the hugo tag for their art updates LOL. we did an art trade last year and it was SO fun! <3 :D look at the beautiful nurse hugo!!!! those thighs man. cries happy tears.

14: Try something new.

this is not so much a 'new' thing as a call for responses. but you know, this time i really do wanna follow through.

i am contemplating getting back into roleplaying this year, but it will be 'new' in the sense that forum roleplay is dying and i honestly do not want to involve myself with many of the people who remain there. LOL. so i'm considering the possibility of tabletop, discord or social media roleplay. but i am wondering about how to make it less of a long-term commitment and more just a fun thing i can do on occasion with pals when the mood strikes.

tabletop actually makes a lot of sense because a lot of campaigns move quite slowly and can be dipped in and out, or you can do one-shots where the commitment is just one night. i did a one-shot live and was a ball of anxiety, but perhaps i could do one that is more of a hybrid between text and voice?

could you please tell me if you roleplay, what you do to balance it with, like. life? what kind of roleplaying do you do (prose, chat, something else? action, fandom, slice of life, erotic?)? what platforms or communities would you recommend? i am curious and want to dip my toe back in but also dont even know what i want to ask for!

#15: Fandom Snowflake Challenge's 2023 Fandom Wrapped!

Your top 5 fandoms for 2023 were: 1) dc/batman. hugo strange renaissance GO 2) metal gear solid. i still haven't played MGSV. 3) venture bros! what a lovely, albeit quite sad, conclusion. 4) silicon valley. i actually didnt do much FANDOMY with silicon valley, but i had SOOO much fun thirsting after gavin belson. ironic, i suppose! 5) the office us. i came up with the robert/ryan au and became more in love with it than the actual show. i will maybe write the 'dark erotic thriller they + gabe shouldve been in' zine this year.

Your top 5 fandom spaces (Discord, Twitter, etc.) in 2023 were: 1) mastodon (aethy and blorbo!) 2) tumblr 3) discord 4) here! 5) the evil hell place that is no longer called twitter. hopefully good riddance next year.

The top 5 things you did to contribute to fandom in 2023 were: 1) participated in artcade :D oc fandom counts, i think!!! and is much more chill too. it was super fun. 2) made COMIX it was so FUN i will do it this year too. actually im halfway through a multipage that i am having so much fun with, it's nice to pace myself and go at a slower pace knowing itll be sick when it's done. 3) made use of DW and mastodon. i'd like to do more here and be more overtly reciprocal in my interactions here, but i'm glad to have made the start this year in opening up a little more, actually interacting beyond liking/sharing and getting out of my shell. 4) made my hugo shrine (link below) lol............ 5) left comments on the lovely fics and art that left a deep impression.

Your top 5 most appreciated fandom contributions were: so, i've actually moved to a lot of platforms where there is no way to view stats easily! i think that is probably a good thing. so i just had to judge this based on vibes.

objectively, i think what received the most engagement was this lovely marlowe lune DTIYS, because it was retweeted by marlowe, and i'm very grateful for that! i love doing black and white illustration (though it was also motivated by a lack of time) and really wanted to draw on a kind of aubrey beardsley, harry clarke type of vintage magic. so, not strictly a 'fandom' contribution, but i had a lot of fun.

other well appreciated works include:

hugo is doll :D (suggestive. there is some bulge <3)

this really quick sketch i made of hugo and mat, based on a ballet photograph. it was literally a 30 minute matter or less, and the anatomy is a little wonky, but i guess it has a vibe. i was inspired by the gorgeous charcoal sketches of zhaoming wu.

i would also like to highlight the hugo strange shrine i made last year! i will hopefully update it soon. i want to finally finish transferring my site to astro and tailwind (with markdown rendering for pages like the hugo shrine, and automatic art gallery rendering so i can just dump images in and they get added to the right gallery section).

i guess that's 4. eh. close enough!

Bonus questions:

Your fandom personality in 2023 was: (i.e. Fandom Eeyore, Twitter Refugee, Discord Party Animal, etc.) decentralisation convert.

made even clearer by the fact i got into self-hosting my own media collection this year (i learned so much! it is so empowering!), AND i just swapped to firefox on all my devices! lets fuck google in the ass!!

In 2023, you discovered: (that you adore hockey RPF, but you hate the Liberty Mutual emu, etc.) i actually... really struggle with the normal DW reading page. i find it really unintuitive for me, especially that communities (which tend to update much more frequently than individuals) are displayed alongside journal entries by default if you click on the reading page link in the main bar rather than just bookmarking the Journals Only page. i'm going to look into either updating my theme so it is less bad on mobile, exploring the options for email updates and commenting, or using an RSS reader. we'll see, but i'm excited to try some different options out to make it easier to contribute here - and especially let you all know i am thinking of you more consistently!

Your fandom home in 2023 was: (Bluesky, Mastodon, Middle Earth, lying in my bed, with a good book, etc.) mastodon! :D

okay. let's aim to be a bit more consistent here for this year. we'll see how i do next year!!!