A handful of fannish links

[dolorosa_12]

My entire house smells like homemade chicken stock, which always feels like a cozy smell to me. I've spent most of the day reading — I finished one book, started another, and read and commented on everything that looked appealling in the Madness collection. I've been enjoying seeing people's Yuletide recs posts — it's always so interesting to me to see the sheer variety of people's tastes and fandoms.

I thought I'd gather some links to fannish resources/challenges here on Dreamwidth, even though I assume most people know about them.

The first is the comm recthething. The clue is in the name — it's a community focused on gathering recs for fanworks. I plan to share my Yuletide recs there after I've posted them, as well as to the yuletide comm.

Apparently Tumblr is up to its usual shenanigans, and there is likely to be an influx of Tumblr discontents joining Dreamwidth. I was reminded, in this context, of the existence of fictional_fans, which is intended to be a low-stakes space for people new to Dreamwidth (or returning here after a long absence on other platforms) to get a feel for the site, while also serving as a space for general fannish discussion.

And finally, I'm considering doing snowflake_challenge for the first time ever this January. I've never felt that I had enough time to do the challenge properly, but I've always wished I could participate, so I've decided that I will make the time for it. So ... expect fannish navel-gazing ahead.

Comments

[nyctanthes]

Oh, good idea to crosspost to recthething. And yum to homemade chicken stock. We go through ours so fast, argh.

[dolorosa_12]

I'm glad it's a helpful idea.

And yes, we go through homemade stock really quickly as well, especially in winter.

[corvidology]

I love that smell. Well, the smell of anything like that which is simmered for a long time. :D

I'd heard distant rumblings about Tumblr. I'm sorry because I know how happy many fans are about being on that site but I could never get into it myself.

The Snowflake challenge is even more low key than it used to be since they stopped running it every day in January.

[dolorosa_12]

I totally agree re: the smell of long-simmering things — stews, goulash, slow-cooked curries etc.

I never found a home on Tumblr either, even though I was there for around eight years. My friends sold it to me as being 'less full of drama than LJ', and maybe it was at the start, but I always found it to be a place with constant flare-ups and fights, a sense that one had to always watch what one said, and where most people seemed actively averse to comments, discussion, or making new friends. But I know for others it really was the perfect platform, and I'm sorry to hear that it's become a hostile space. This whole situation has reinforced my opinion that fannish platforms will always let fans down, unless said platforms are built by and for fans, and with no intention to monetise.

[vriddy]

I participated in the snowflake_challenge for the first time this year and only did two of the challenges, but found interesting people to subscribe to by reading the comments and clicking around, too! It seems very chill and low pressure, I quite enjoyed it. It was nice.

Thank you for the other comms recs as well! I want to get better at sharing my recs lists and make them more readable so I'll give a shot to recthething. My issue with these multi-fandom busy communities is that they tend to take over my reading page and I struggle to keep up, but I suspect I need to find a better system for using the reading page in general. Always learning :)

[dolorosa_12]

Thanks for sharing your experience doing snowflake_challenge. I've done sunshine_challenge before, but that falls at a time of year when I'm less busy, and I've always felt an anxiety about signing up to do something if I'm not going to complete every activity. I'm glad to know it's a low pressure event, though.

I'm glad you found the other comms recs to be useful.

[vriddy]

I was subscribed to sunshine_challenge but didn't really understand how it worked, maybe August had too much going on for me this year. I'll look more closely next year!!

I kind of went into the snowflake_challenge with the opposite mindset in 2021: I was planning to lurk only and understand how to do things for next year. But there isn't even a need to sign up, you can just drop in - and when a couple of challenges related to recs and goals popped up I couldn't resist answering them. Looking forward to your entries if you do decide to participate!

[chestnut_pod]

To be entirely honest, I'm excited about a potential new influx of DW people, though the new December of Apple-related censorship is disheartening.

[dolorosa_12]

Same here! It'll be nice to see some new people around, although the circumstances are unfortunate.