hanging my tomorrows on the bones of yesterday

Challenge #1

The Icebreaker Challenge: Introduce yourself. Tell us why you're doing the challenge, and what you hope to gain from it.

Post your answer to today’s challenge in your own space and leave a comment in this post saying you did it.

My introduction is my sticky post for new folks, and what I hope to gain from Snowflake is to be reminded, as I am every year, that people are Good Actually, that we’re all trying so so hard to entertain and be good to one another, even when we’re bad at it.

That’s basically what fandom is, isn’t it? People telling each other stories and someone saying, “I wonder what would have happened if …”, and someone else taking that energy and running with it towards the next leg of this relay race of ideas and enthusiasm. And because excitement tends to build and feed off of other’s excitement, we all wind up with this frisson of joy when we get to read that The Witcher/Star Wars crossover, or the one where Deadpool is an Addams on his mother’s side, or the Leverage OT3 Of Great Justice adopts a kitten, or or or, ad infinitum.

We all wind up having richer lives more full of fun and play, together. I think it’s beautiful. It has changed how I see the world and what people are capable of, and I’m so grateful.

It’s almost January again, and time for snowflake_challenge to appear out of the time stream to bring joy to fandom, the fandom-adjacent, and everyone who wants to dip a toe into enthusiastically loving a piece of media. Not every challenge will appeal to every person, and not everyone wants to participate in the friending meme. But for some of us, the chance to say “I LOVE EVERYONE IN THIS BAR” (where the bar is a fandom for a thing we love) is not to be passed up.

If you’re a TSwift-streaming music dilettante or you own every Ella Fitzgerald album ever made, if you just discovered a show about gay hockey dudes, if you liked a movie back in the 80’s that you want more stories about: you are part of fandom, too. Welcome! Come hang out with us!

Subscribe to snowflake_challenge for the month of January, and we’ll try to make it worth your while.

Snowflake Challenge #6:
Share your favourite piece of original canon.

I have no idea? 🤷 I have terrible episodic memory, plus I’ve been in fandom so long that it’s changed how I watch media. The creators just want to tell a story (usually about a white guy), and meanwhile I’m busy tilting my head at the marginalized character whose backstory and screen time got cut and trying to figure out why they made this choice. I know other fans will come up with more satisfying answers, but it’s more fun and interesting to think about than whatever is happening onscreen to Hollywood Chris #4 or whoever the main character is supposed to be.

🤔 Hmm. My semantic memory for things that I read is significantly better than what I watch. Maybe … I like Sam Vines and his wife, Lady Sybil. I like how they love each other without trying to change each others joys. Lady Sybil breeds tiny dragons, which are a constant danger to her, but Vimes gets it because he runs the Ankh-Morpork City Watch with the kind of aggressive integrity that makes rich nobles try to assassinate him repeatedly and he just considers that the normal cost of being a good copper, takes it as a sign he’s doing something right. He actually is the kind of person all real-world cops think they are but never live up to. Most real cops are Sergeant Colon, if they aren’t worse. 😒 And the series of Discworld books about the Watch make that very clear.

So I guess that one scene in the beginning of Night Watch where he [redacted] and his response is just eye-rolling aggravation that, today of all days, the Assassins’ Guild thinks they can [redacted]. He is not a training dummy, damn it! But he never considers being any other sort of cop, because he’s seen what the other kind of policing can do to a city.

Snowflake Challenge #4

Since this is the start of a new year, this challenge will be e to set your own goals! Of course we can all make large or ambitious goals, remember that small and/or short goals are also good!

My resolution this year is that I’m going to play more. The goal is to do or say one goofy or silly or flirty or ridiculous thing every day. Play is good for the brain and helps our nervous system experience safety.

If I make a hexi-puff every day as well, that would be cool and go a long way towards making a blanket that I want to make for the Washington house. Link that doesn’t want to hyperlink: https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/the-beekeepers-quilt

Snowflake Challenge #2

In your own space, talk about your fannish origin story. Post your answer to today’s challenge in your own space and leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

So a couple years ago, I told the story of how I got into fandom by searching webrings for pictures of Gambit from the X-Men to do a cosplay, and found fandom and just never left. But this is the story of why I stayed.

Some of it was through reading good fic, and a place in my heart goes to bifictional bedlam’s polyamorous recommendations, because I think it was there that I followed a link rabbit hole to the livejournal of copperbadge, he of the awesome journal, the imaginary poet laureate, and the well-moderated comment section full of friendly oddballs. Once I started making fandom friends who got my references? It was game over. I was never going to leave at that point.

copperbadge’s journal had thoughtful breakdowns of, for instance, Sam Vimes’ character and why he had to be the way he was for the plot of Guards! Guards! to swing around him. Fics like Stealing Harry, etc. were awesome, but his journal is part of how I came to be a curious interrogator of narratives at all, because I used to not do that.

So happy Snowflake Challenge to copperbadge and to you, too! May January 2025 bring us the gleeful spite we all need to feast on the distemper of those who would subdue us!

snowflake_challenge needs a couple more people to do commenting this year, so if you love fandom and have time to pitch in, it's a good deal.

Hello again! There are only a few days left before Fandom Snowflake 2024 goes live and we could still use some more volunteers to help out with commenting. You can do as much or as little as will fit in your schedule. If you can only comment on one day, that would still be a great help! If you'd like more information, please comment here or contact me at spikedluv @ dreamwidth.org.

Thank you!

Meanwhile, I am dealing with a death in the family, and will be going out of town for the funeral next week. :((( And after that I'll be helping a friend move, including packing, so won't have much by way of downtime to do my usual Snowflake cheer-spreading (which is kinda sad, since I do enjoy it). If you have any cheerful/cute/spicy memes or baby animal pics etc. that you can send my way, plz feel free to do so, as well.

The team at snowflake_challenge is looking for volunteers for January. If you have free time and will have spoons available after the holidays, go give spikedluv a holler at the email in the post? It was fun and rewarding the years that I had spoons for it.

So it is Monday, and I am supposed to do my therapy journal today. But it is also an odd-numbered day in January, so there’s a Snowflake challenge today about setting goals, themes, or plans for the year. I can do that.

I think my therapy theme for this year is “I am not at home to relationships that do not serve me”. My relationship with money, my relationship with my dad, my relationship to people who want me to chase after their attention - these things do not serve my interest in taking care of myself, and they will be changed until they no longer resemble time sinks with little reward.

My life theme for this year will be “awkward, brave, and kind”, to steal some inspiration from Brené Brown, my muse, my heart. This year I want to make friends with difficult conversations, with awkward pauses while I think things over, with brave conversations where I tell friends, “hey, I don’t think I can sign on for this, it doesn’t feel right.”

My goals are to finish making Ghost’s bathrobe, make 3 pairs of socks, and finish 3 large knitting projects.

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5 feelings I felt today: anger, helplessness, doubt, stress, physical discomfort

Today I felt anger because I thought I missed my bloodwork appointment and will have to reschedule.
Today I felt helplessness because I thought surely the American medical system can get me a rheumatologist appointment before April, but no.
Today I felt doubt because I thought that the friend who did the toxic thing with his ex might have lied to me and I would have no way to know.
Today I felt stress because I thought I could do 7 things today, but no. My limit seems to be 4 today.
Today I felt physical discomfort because I thought that putting off the oophorectomy until I had the next ovarian cyst was necessary to get my doctor to believe me and refer me to a surgeon. And now I still have periods. Boo.

snowflake_challenge #2: In your own space, write a promo, manifesto or primer for your fave character, ship or fandom.

I don’t know how to play favorites with people or characters or fandoms, but maybe a primer for fandom itself would have been nice, when I was still dipping a toe into these waters, not wanting to “bother” anyone with my unseemly and uncool enthusiasm for the X-Men fanfic I found on a web ring while researching a Gambit cosplay I never wound up making. (Possibly because I was too busy reading fanfic.)

So: you’ve found out about fandom! Welcome to the world of other weirdos! Pros: Some of them are just like you! Cons: Some of them are just like you!

Look, we English-speakers got raised in some fairly similar background radiation of imperialist authoritarianism, capitalism, and toxic positivity in the US and UK, and Australia wasn’t far behind us on that front. We all have a lot of similar cultural crap, and most of us don’t deal with it very compassionately. We weren’t taught how to, or even taught that we were being raised with these flaws in the first place. We had to fumble around on our own and figure out how to play nice with each other. So when you meet another fan who you’re not seeing eye to eye with, maybe don’t go in guns blazing. Maybe extend the same generous interpretation of their actions as you would have liked to be extended at the same point in your development.

So first: people grow better in the light of affectionate regard than they do in the harsh glare of shaming and being blamed for why we can’t have nice things. Even people who are obviously trolls 🧌 deserve basic human decency, even if you’re not going to give them the attention they are after.

Next: if your enthusiasm is not fun for other people, then you are hanging out with the wrong people. I get it, the weird cultural hegemony we live in taught you that being cool was equal to never getting excited about things, never caring enough to put your heart into something, never over-sharing or even just sharing. But fandom is a by-us for-us group of enthusiastic nerds, and we honor that by sharing our joy, not gatekeeping, and recommending the good stuff to other folks.

And last: if you think someone is being a jerk, you can tell them why that’s so, and maybe they’ll change their mind. But if you think someone liking something you don’t is what makes them a jerk, then maybe keep that to yourself? If they are not causing real-world harm to real people you can just ignore them. It’s fine.

And that’s it. That’s enough to get you started in any fandom. Thanks for coming to my TED Talk.

Welcome, Snowflakes!

The guidelines: Please be gentle with one another in the comments, and if you wonder about something, just ask! I am open about my own life to a degree that is ridiculous to a lot of people, but protective of those I share my life with, so while I will not be answering identifying questions about friends and lovers, pretty much anything else is fair game.

Feel free to drop off interesting links, weird factoids, or random comments on how your own projects are going, or leave pictures of your food/crafts/pets. There are no bad pictures of your pets.