there may be words

[ lighter squares: fics | darker squares: gifs ]

[ card from guardianbingo | code insp girlrock ]

Challenge 15

In your own space, create your own challenge. Leave a comment to this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

Borrowing the spirit of hogwartstoalexandria's Marked for Later challenge, but toned way down given work and various other commitments are all over the place right now…

The challenge: Every time I open AO3 (whether from a fic alert or just general site visits), I'll also check the "Is it later already?" section on the homepage and either immediately read or remove the 3 marked-for-later fics listed there.

Exception – for fics that I do want to read but are really way longer than I have time for right then, I get to leave it there and randomly pick another marked fic instead.

This won't exactly be fast-going, seeing as it's 3 fics each time against 500+ total on my list going back to 2016-ish, but quite a portion of these are probably for fandoms I'm no longer interested in so I probably won't end up reading them anyway. At least I'll know that I'm making some progress on whittling it down, and given we're probably returning to the office more often this year it'll conveniently fill in that commute time.

I've also limited it to "whenever I open AO3" rather than every day or some other schedule because I'm probably gonna be in the reading-things mood then anyway. If you've got a choice then rig the game for success, right?

(I also have a little sometimes-project on the side with my AO3 bookmarks where I'm going through older ones and quoting my favourite snippet of the fic in the notes, like what I do with my more recent bookmarks! Which helps me recall what I liked about each fic more easily than the title or summary, and seeing all the snippets together afterwards is also pretty fun… and also conclusive proof that I have a type for fics, I think, but that's probably obvious already.)

Challenge #14

In your own space, post your pictures of your fandom scavenger hunt results. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

Not physically-motivated enough to get up and take photos right now, so descriptions it is! With links to images where available…

( this may have turned into a linkspam instead…? )

(Or, more accurately, "comints?" cat…)

Challenge 13.

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, wild times with fellow fans (whether on-line or off-line), a lovely comment you’ve received or have left for someone. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

I've already mentioned the Murderbot server in a previous Snowflake post but they deserve another shoutout here – my first fic for the fandom got shared there and summoned a literal deluge of lovely comments within hours of posting. I recall sitting there just going "??!?!?!???!????!!" internally at the number of email notifications in an extremely flattered-if-mystified way. 10/10 amazing reception, would experience again.

I often say I've been very lucky in my fandom experience because while I don't really get lots of engagement (partly expected given what I usually write, i.e. short gen fic with no popular ships in sight, if you consider that niche) I've also never had bad experiences firsthand, and what interactions do happen are often fun as hell.

Other particular favourites aside from the above: every time people go capital-letter-swearing at me in reblog tags while I cackle like a poorly-casted witch, unorthodox but extremely heartwarming compliments in anonymous asks (quotes include "your writing is like. soup. good." and "but the marbles that make it out of YOUR pinball brain maze are fantastic"), and fanworks accidentally inspired by my own stuff (podfic(!!) of the Night Vale!FMA AU by angel-bazethiel, and this cinematic expansion of my MDZS timetravel au idea by brawltogethernow also originator of the very appropriate tag "#okay hold on i was trying to write YOU a tiny gift fic based on a tumblr post slow down"). Great times!

Yet more prompt fills from today's 3 Sentence Ficathon harvest, previous archive posts here and here!

A half-sized batch of four ficlets this time, all Guardian… and all from wildly different AUs! Including yet another crack crossover, because nobody stopped me least of all myself. Please fasten your seat belts when the captain turns the light on, et cetera.

( ficlet: daemon au )

( ficlet: canon-but-apocalypse au )

( ficlet: SID but timey-wimey, the au )

( ficlet: surprise crossover! ta-daaaa )

Challenge #11

In your own space, Interact with someone. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

Well that's one I can mark finished already :P I've definitely done More Interaction™️ here in the past two weeks since arriving to DW compared to my usual month across… everywhere else added together?

So I guess this is mostly a note to say hi (again!) to everyone I've met so far both in Guardian and general fandom, plus a very enthusiastic thanks for all the A++ comments on my gif post for Snowflake and also me losing my marbles over Zhou Shen because I <3 him a normal amount. (And may or may not be planning to do another instalment of that later today – what else are weekends for, right?)

Also a shoutout to everyone over at guardian_learning for providing excuses to think far too much about language than is strictly necessary or reasonable. Consider this an open invite for anyone learning Mandarin to come throw your language cooties at me whenever (with the caveat that I'm definitely not Mainland-standard on vocab or grammar but still good enough overall), which will hopefully tempt my brain back into semi-formal Japanese learning at some point.

Or drop a track you're listening or most recently listened to! That's Mika's Elle me dit for me:

Guardian fic for the prompt "current" over at fan_flashworks, now crossposted to AO3!

(Also: the two-part compilation of the sixteen(!!) prompt fills done so far for the 3 Sentence Ficathon, if you haven't seen them yet!)

cause love, we're like fire
Rating: G
Length: 2530 words
Prompt: "current" on fan_flashworks
Summary:

• The Murderbot Discord server! Lots of excellent people and discussions, not to mention robot emotes hahaha romotes – what's there not to love? (And not in a weird way, of course.)
• The Zhou Shen fanclub Twitter aka one-stop shop for keeping up with the (many, many) updates of new songs and other stuff, or alternatively the infohub Weibo for even more comprehensive updates. (I would also like to say "the Zhou Shen tag on Tumblr" because we do have a cozy little appreciation club ongoing there, but also I make up like half of the recent posts at any given time lol sorry guys!!)
• Haven't actually used this one yet, but this Weilan by runtime guide for each Guardian episode, which I foresee coming in handy in rewatches or just to find a specific scene.