Snowflake Challenge 2022 3 + 4

[shadowhive]

Challenge #3

In your own space, put some favorite characters into an AU, fuse some favorite canons together, talk about your favorite AU/fusion tropes, or tell us why AU/fusions aren’t your cup of tea. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

So between having to go and pick up meds and then not feeling well I wasn’t able to do challenge 3 on the day. So instead I’m doing it now with today’s one (since my head is feeling much better)

So let’s get to it.

When it comes to AUs I don’t tend to read too many of them. Sometimes with band stuff there’d be general AUs (ie where they weren’t in a band) so that was mostly it. I’ve also read a few serial killer ones and stuff like that.

I love space stuff, so I’ve meant to do a Set It Off fic based on the Lonely Dance video which, for some reason, is set in space with them being terrorised by an alien. (I really wanna know what inspired the choice of it for the song) I just haven’t had the chance to work out specifics for it. Maybe I will at some point.

One of my favourite AUs that I’ve done, and would love to see more of, is a Mamma Mia au. Because it’s my favourite films. Yes it’s fun and silly but it’s just so 🖤 Here’s the one I did for The Umbrella Academy and it’s still the favourite thing I’ve done.

Speaking of The Umbrella Academy it was ripe for AUs especially after season 1 and a lot of people wrote stuff post season 1 where they’d got back to their own time and everything was as it should be.

Recently I did do a few fics in a version of a DND type world, with some of the monsters from it. I’m thinking of going back to it at some point.

Challenge #4

In your own space, make a list of things that you wish existed in fandom or elsewhere, and/or that you'd like someone to create or do for you. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

Well I’m gonna do a few serious ones, then a few things I’d like specifically for me.

First off, I wish fandom was kinder. It feels like, in recent years, people have become crueller. They will hate on others for what they ship or enjoy. They’ll start campaigns against them and bully them. I really, truly, hate that. Especially as someone who had been on the receiving end of it.

And for that point can we stop hassling people for liking ‘problematic’ ships, shows, characters, tropes. (and fuck do I despise that word)

I wish spaces weren’t being… I’m not sure what the exact word is. It started with tumblr banning nsfw content and then it went from there. I’m sick of it. Let people enjoy adult content in peace. It shouldn’t become sanitised for puriteens.

I wish there was more engagement in fandom. Yes ao3 is a good resource for fics, but it’s also… I dunno. People seem to just leave kudos and not comment on fic, which I think is sad. And it’s also very easy for small fandoms there to remain small. It feels like there’s no spaces for connection. I wish dreamwidth was as active as LJ used to be at its height because I loved that. I think when people abandoned it, everyone just kinda… dissipated. And that’s sad.

As such it’s hard to make connections with people, especially good people. Which is a real shame. Stuff like snowflake can be good for that, which I’m thankful for (and I hope to go through other posts when I’m more focussed)

But what I’d like for myself?

I’d always welcome new friends on here. I often feel when I stumble into new fandoms I’m doing it alone or with only one person so I’d love to have more people to squee over things with (currently it’s DreamSMP and minecraft YouTubers which isn’t something I’d have expected) and to squee over geeky stuff like Star Wars and Doctor Who and such.

I’d love there to be more content with Set It Off, but it seems there’s not much of a fandom for them fic wise (it feels like MCR is the only band that has a super active fic writing fandom and it puzzles me). I’d love more Maxx fic, with anyone and everyone. (Same with Alex from Badflower, and Ray Toro which is evergreen). Now that Jay is in Kill The Lights I’d love more fic of him too but I don’t expect any.

Because I’ve fallen into this new fandom I’m gonna have to devour all the Sapnap, Dream, Quackity, Eret, Wilbur fics that there are on ao3 (and I’m probably missing some too).

So basically I’d like any fic with Jay James, Maxx Danziger, Ray Toro, Quackity, Wilbur Soot, Sapnap, Dream, Eret, Alex from Badflower. (And I’m sure I missed someone. I did do a post of wants But it’s pretty out of date and I did a slight addition before December)

***

So yeah like I mentioned I’ve not been well since I went out. My tummy and head have felt funny and it’s just been really annoying. Thankfully it seems the liquid neurofen I picked up today seems to have helped with the head.

As such not much has happened cause my focus has been more than a little off which is annoying.

Quackity did stream last night, streaming the new Five Nights At Freddys and his thirst over Glamrock Freddy is just… Unff. There’s art already and I’m sure there’s only a matter of time before nsfw art shows up. (and him running around while ymca played was funny) and before that Wilbur streamed Risk and was so full of manipulative, horny energy it was so…

Is anyone in the uk near a b and m? They’ve got some of the vidiyo sets reduced down to £1 (and £5 for one of the sets) so if you see them lemme know. I was meant to be going when mums friend was next gonna come (and I was gonna get the jungle abomination) but their mum has had a tumble so she won’t be coming anytime soon.

My Georgenotfound hoodie has been shipped so yay! Also my Lego has been sent so hopefully that’ll be here soon woo!

My new card came yesterday and has anyone else had ones with a notch on one side? I’ve never seen that before

And todays Father Brown was so awesome, I knew it would be when it had not just Flambeau but a lady Felicia and just ahh!

I’m gonna snug now, I dunno if I’ll fix today or anything but we’ll see.

Comments

[writedragon]

I hear you about purity culture and fandom spaces not being very interactive. As a creator it's really disheartening. I mean, of course I create for myself and the joy of making all the things, but I put my creations out into the world to Squee with fellow fans -- and if nobody squees back I feel very sad and lonely about it.

I think the lack of interaction on A03 is due to many things, including younger folk not understanding that it's more than ok to leave comments (and it's not stalkery -- A03 is an ARCHIVE not a social media space and I don't know if they really get that), and also many people read offline on mobile and it's a pain to write much with your thumbs after jumping back to the story link -- the use of mobile makes it harder to leave comments, in other words (I suspect).

As a person who's a relative newcomer to fandom, I feel like I arrived at the party just as it was ending. Grateful for DW and a few Discord spaces I've been fortunate enough to discover, but the death of tumblr is making it really hard to share and get any kind of feedback for artwork, especially. The censorship of youtube has killed my desire to make fanvids (which I love doing, but what's the point if the only safe place to share is an obscure vidding-org site?). Feeling salty along with you.

[shadowhive]

Yeah that’s exactly how I feel! It feels so much harder to create and not get people saying they enjoyed it, especially with how easily people will hate on things

I think you’re right, there definitely does feel a disconnect with younger fans which seems odd to me. I’m mostly on ‘mobile’ though it’s more of being on my pad. I got on it more when my laptop screwed up and I just, stayed with it. Now I only go on my laptop to rip cds for my MP3, do uni assignments and make icons

Awww no that’s really sad. Yeah the state of things is such a shame. Discords can be great but finding them is hard. Oh no that’s such a shame! I always admire people that can do art or fanvids and it’s so disheartening seeing platforms become unfriendly. Ugh

[muccamukk]

I so hear you on wishing fandom was both kinder and more engaged. It's been a rough few years.

I hope your tummy is feeling better soon <3

[shadowhive]

Yeah it really has. It’s so sad to see that people are so mean instead of focusing on what they love and enjoy.

Aww thank you! Yeah it seems to be better today, I kept thinking I might be sick but that seems to have passed thankfully.

[carrythefire]

i'm picking up my boyfriend from work tomorrow before we go out for a meal and he works next to a b&m so i can take a look. what is it i'm looking for?

also also, isn't kinkverse an AU? and also also also, what are the monster fics you wrote in a dnd world?

[shadowhive]

Oh thanks! these are the video things, I only got the punk rock pirate box cause they were so expensive when they came out. They’ll likely not have them though so no worries!

Ohh that is true, and a pretty big one at that! I really should go back to it at some point

The dnd type ones are here there’s only two but I might do more (I know someone wants me to do something based on a corpse flower

[carrythefire]

alright, so anything aside from the punk rock pirate yea?

ok mate can i just say the fact they're tagged as "monster fucking" has sold me already lol

[shadowhive]

Yeah! He’s pretty cool cause he has a guitar in the shape of an anchor

Hee thanks! There really needs to be more monster fucking fics in the world

[sourgreen]

georgenotfound, ranboo and tommyinnit are very lonely from being excluded from ur list :(

i don't mind kudos over comments because seeing kudos gives me a little burst of serotonin but like... i get ur point at the same time. it'd be nice to know ppl's thoughts moreso than just "i liked this enough to hit a button," idk.

oddly, i had thought you were more of an au writer than u said u were... im a huge slut for aus so i write them all the time tbh.

[shadowhive]

See whenever I make lists I always manage to miss someone who is obvious and just can’t see it *pokes self*

(I need to see if I can get a good pic of QNF to icon)

Yeah it gives me a little burst but I get so much more from a comment you know? (I was still surprised when I posted my first fic of George and got a load of kudos) real and true!

Oh really? Maybe I am, I guess I kinda think of au as… wilder AUs you know? Like coffee shops or space or something with dragons

[sourgreen]

i almost included billzo too but hes a bitch and not special enough to be on the list

(i too would love a qnf icon :c)

dnf gets hella kudos it's insane, the hit counts are crazy too.

ohhh that makes sense. i was thinking like an au is if u change anything from real life.

[shadowhive]

This is true! I’m amused he got mentioned on Foolish’s stream and he called him a menace

Yeah I was gonna make one of the original pics they posted but it was too dark and they were too far apart (and then I’ve not tried to get one from the streams they did)

Yeah! Though I can’t say I’m surprised they’re as thirsty for it as Dream is

Yeah I think that’s a common definition that works too!🖤

[turps]

I hope you can find more friends that share your new interests. I know fandom is always better when you have someone to squee with.

We have a B&M in town and wish I'd seen this earlier as I was down there this morning. But next time I'll there I'll keep an eye out. Though ours is only a small shop unlike some of the mega ones that are out there.

I hope you feel much better soon ♥

[shadowhive]

I hope so too. Yeah it absolutely is 🥺 I need to find a way to drag more people down my rabbit hole

Awww that’s a shame! You’re sweet for looking. I’m not optimistic they’d be out in many places, the price is so cheap! But I appreciate it

Awww thank you, I do feel much better than I was so I hope it stays like that

[dreamersdare]

\0/ for feeling better!

Also, I fully support the enjoyment of fun and silly things in fandom. But then, you know me, as long as it's all safe, sane and consensual**, I support most any things in fandom



**in RL. In fic, you do what you want :DDD

[shadowhive]

Awww thank you!

Me too fandom should absolutely be fun! I hate that it’s become the opposite.

Funny story, I reblogged on tumblr a thing supporting people doing things consensually…. And someone I was following vague posted about it then blocked me. The funny thing? They wrote about said things. So it’s ok to write about people doing those things but supporting actual people doing them??? People are so odd

[dreamersdare]

People do shit for the weirdest reasons; I have largely given up trying to make sense of it. I generally, in those kinds of situations, have a "okay, see you then" mental shrug and then forget about them. Life is too short to worry about the opinions or logic of strangers on the internet!

[shadowhive]

It really is so baffling! That is pretty much what I did but it just… completely baffled me. I really don’t get people now

[sodium_amytal]

People seem to just leave kudos and not comment on fic, which I think is sad. And it’s also very easy for small fandoms there to remain small. It feels like there’s no spaces for connection. I wish dreamwidth was as active as LJ used to be at its height because I loved that. I think when people abandoned it, everyone just kinda… dissipated. And that’s sad.

Same. TvT I have so many Thoughts about how social media has affected people enough that slowing down and migrating to more wordy, less "stimulating" spaces like LJ and DW is a somewhat lost cause, but I'm trying not to be *too* negative in these responses. xD

[shadowhive]

It really is so strange. To me it’s baffling, sure there’s a space for places like twitter and such but they can be so limiting and unwieldy (especially when you have a lot of words to get out) so I just prefer things like this. (Case in point last week I was trying to make a thread on my private twitter, I had it all typed out and…. It just refused to tweet). It really is such a shame

Try this ...

[ysabetwordsmith]

>> First off, I wish fandom was kinder.<<

Resources on Kindness

Peacemongering 101

Emotional First Aid

Sample Online Community Parameters


>>I wish there was more engagement in fandom.<<

Agreed.

allbingo has regular activity.

I'd really like to revive three_weeks_for_dw because, like Snowflake, it boosted activity.

Re: Try this ...

[shadowhive]

Ohh those sound useful, I wish more people would learn stuff like that

I do follow all bingo though image been bad at doing the ones I’ve had before now

Re: Try this ...

[ysabetwordsmith]

>>Ohh those sound useful, I wish more people would learn stuff like that<<

Model it. Write it into fanfic. People may emulate it. I have fans who use "What would Uncle Phil do?" or "What would Stalwart Stan do?" and several of my other characters as moral guidelines.

>>I do follow all bingo though image been bad at doing the ones I’ve had before now<<

That's okay. Play when you feel like it. There's no pressure.

[silveradept]

It's very odd to me to see the way in which fandom seems to have splintered but not reformed yet, or if it did, it's not doing it in a public space yet, and it's entirely weird to me to see the way in which norms that I had thought core to fandom, like the primacy of "Don't like? Don't read." and the liberal use of the back button.

I think that Dreamwidth is certainly one of the places where things could reform, but I think it'll end up being somewhere in the non-commercial social media space, once there's enough funding behind one or two of them to get really big.

[shadowhive]

Yeah it really is so odd. I mentioned it before to someone it seems when people left lj they splinted into the wind, going in different directions and just… it’s sad. When I found dreamwidth I thought it might work as a good hub of activity but it’s just… not as it was.

I agree I always thought ‘don’t like don’t read’ was a core tenant, but it’s not anymore. I’ve seen people post screenshots of peoples fics (untamed) to mock them. I’ve seen others start harassment campaigns because ‘this person ships x or writes about y’ and it’s just so… I really hate it

I’d really love to see dreamwidth much more active. What I love for snowflake is that it ups the activity but then it doesn’t seem to get maintained the rest of the year. (And theres not enough fandom spaces here)

[silveradept]

For some time now, Tumblr had been the place of choice for doing long form stuff, especially since they have the backing to host images for the people who want to express their love in screenshots. And while some of them will find their way here eventually, I think many of them are going to private Discord rooms or restarting small mailing lists so they can practice their fandom away from the eyes of others who want to hate on it or monetize it for their own purposes.

It's a little less wieldy to find new people on Dreamwidth. There's the interest search, but there aren't any tags to follow globally across the site or signposting communities (or all that many active ones, it seems.) And the media landscape seems pretty scattered as well, with more materials to be fannish about without overlaps. So now activity often means having to actively go find people and say hi instead of having a content feed already there to work with. Which is the idea, I think, because serendipity is birth "new squee" and "the haters found me."

[spikedluv]

I recall the early days on LJ when you couldn't get through your f-list because so many people were posting. And there seemed to be a community for every fandom, no matter how small, and they were all active. It's sad how quiet it is sometimes. Also, down with purity culture.

I hope you receive your wishes!

[shadowhive]

Yeah those were good times and it was so awesome to see. It’s so sad it’s dead now. Purity culture really does suck

Aww thank!

[wenchpixie]

And todays Father Brown was so awesome, I knew it would be when it had not just Flambeau but a lady Felicia and just ahh!
YES! I've just finished watching it now and I was coming to squee with you, SO GOOD. I love Felicia and Flambeau is always a good time and it was SO GOOOOOOOD ♥

I'm also super glad that they mentioned whatsherface in Thursday's ep after she just disappeared years ago!

[shadowhive]

Yes! I squeed at him being in the precredits opening and then the ep started and Lady Felicia was there and I squeed! It really was such a great ep!and then when he said ‘ I’m not here for the tiara the treasure I came here for is you’ I was just ahhh!

Yeah me too! Why did it take so long to say that?

[wenchpixie]

I’m not here for the tiara the treasure I came here for is you’ OH MY HEART Yes! I don't that much will come of it, because she's catholic and married, but ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

[shadowhive]

That was such a romantic thing to say and I choose to believe that he meant it! Honestly I did hope she’d run off with him at the end. Maybe she will (if something happens to her husband which wouldn't be surprising)

[wenchpixie]

if something happens to her husband which wouldn't be surprising agreed, particularly given he's been 100% off screen for so long!

[shadowhive]

I remember reading the other day that she’s gonna be in the 100th ep (which is on Friday and I just looked back at it and….

[wenchpixie]

And that'll be the end of the season as well, won't it? INTERESTING STUFF.

[shadowhive]

Yeah exactly! When I checked a few days ago it just mentioned that Lady Felicia was back and it was a ball at her place so the rest is all new to me and just… ahhh it’s gonna be awesome

[badfalcon]

I am nodding along reading this - and the one that really gets me is when the people in a fandom don't feel like they're fans, just slagging everything off. That makes me frowny and sad.

And I hope you're feeling better *hugs*

[rhoda_rants]

Okay, mashing up The Umbrella Academy with Mamma Mia is inspired. I never would've thought to put those together! I think that's how AUs happen though--you get two fandoms that don't have much in common except you're a fan of both, so you throw them in the blender and see what happens. One of my favorite ones I've done is Yuri!!! On Ice in the universe of The Haunting Of Hill House. Didn't get much traction, but I'm still proud of it.

Fandom community is really hard lately. Leaving forums and message boards behind is part of it, because there used to be more specialized places FOR specific fandoms. You can always curate your interests to some extent, and Snowflake is a good place to meet new people, but yeah, it's not the same. Plus as someone else in these comments mentioned, it is always more fun to squee *with* somebody.

[shadowhive]

Aww thank! It’s cause someone mentioned it in the Kliego discord and it just… stuck with me so I did it months later. But yeah that’s what I think too! I don’t do them too much but the results can be interesting! That does sound cool

It really is so hard, I hate what it’s become. People seem less interested about squeezing about what they love and more about hating others. As such it’s hard to meet people to squee with ep which is so sad and just... Ugh

[turlough]

It's good to hear you're feeling a little better!

Everything is better IN SPAAAACE :-)

I really, really wish fandom had stayed on journaling sites like DW and LJ!