Snowflake Challenge: Challenge 9

[lebateleur]

Challenge #9

In your own space, list your Fandom Wrap categories. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

I kinda went to town on this one. One interesting thing I've noticed participating in this year's challenge is that my off-the-cuff reactions to the prompts are frequently inaccurate. For instance, I initially thought in response to Challenge 3 that I had never written a heavy duty AU. (Turns out I’ve written two.) My initial response to this challenge was that I didn’t write anything last year. I was so convinced of this that I didn’t even bother doing any of the end-of-year writing memes. Then I realized I'd written a Yuletide gift. Then I logged into AO3 to grab the link to that and discovered that I actually wrote five fics last year (which, while not impressive by many people’s standards, is almost double what I’ve written in recent years).


What are your top five fandoms for 2021 based on the amount of time you interacted with them?

1. Dungeons and Dragons/tabletop RPG.
    My main group’s epic 4+ year homebrew campaign is still going strong and was a major factor in helping to maintain my mental health in an otherwise incredibly stressful year. Two other campaigns died in 2021 (due to two toxic individuals—one incredibly so—so that’s actually a blessing in disguise). And I started a third campaign with a new group last October that has proved to be great fun.
2. The Blake & Avery series.
    I had great fun hosting a sync read of the first novel last year. My second-longest fic of 2021 was also for this fandom, and was difficult but fun because it focused on a different pair of characters than I usually write, and set down a bit of my personal headcanon for these novels.
3. The House on Vesper Sands.
    Currently, this is a Fandom of One. I effusively love everything about this gem of a novel: plot, characters, language; and even managed to write a drabble for it.
4. MCU: specifically, WandaVision, Falcon and Winter Soldier, and Loki.
    This one was pretty passive, as it involved me watching all three shows in the space of a month. Still, as someone who requires a lot of coaxing to watch anything instead of reading a book, this was an achievement on my part.
5. The Watchmaker of Filigree Street.
    I wrote my longest fic of 2021 for this fandom, for Yuletide, as well as a shorter fic for last year’s Snowflake Challenge.


What are your top five fandom spaces in terms of time spent? (AO3, Twitter, Tumblr, Reddit, Dreamwidth, and others)

1. Roll20 and DnDBeyond.
    Which enabled me to both play DnD and maintain a semblance of a social life in Plague Year No. 2
2. Dreamwidth.
    For the Blake & Avery sync read, (relatively) regular What Am I Reading Wednesday posts, and lots of lurking to read about others’ fandom activities.
3. Discord.
    Alas, mostly as a lurker. As a tepid introvert, I find it pretty difficult to jump into ongoing conversations.
4. AO3.
    To post a few fics. My fanfic reading was basically nonexistent last year.
5. ...and that’s it. Last year was a really sparse year for me in terms of fandom interaction. As far as other platforms go, I noped out of twitter and other major social media spaces many years ago and the peace of mind and time for deep concentration I gained in return have made me unlikely to return to them any time soon.



What are the top five ways you interacted in these fandoms? (Reading fanfic, writing, commenting, watching videos, chatting with friends, making art, or anything else you can think of).

1. Playing DnD.
    As: a tiefling rogue (homebrew campaign), a wood elf monk of Sune (Descent into Avernus), a half-elf bard (Out of the Abyss), and a dryad swarm master ranger (The Wild Beyond the Witchlight).
2. Reading/writing Dreamwidth posts.
    See above
3. Reading canon.
    Primarily my microfandom novels.
4. Watching canon.
    In addition to the MCU series, I got the GC to watch Avatar: the Last Airbender and Adventure Time, neither of which he had seen before. I fell out of watching AEW regularly after it expanded into too many broadcast and online shows for me to keep up with in a week.
5. Reading mainstream(ish) meta.
    Such as Forbes for Destiny commentary, and newspaper/entertainment sites’ reviews and meta on the MCU series.



What are the top five things you did to contribute to fandom in terms of time? Did you write? Comment? Send positive energy into the universe? Create art?

1. Playing DnD.
    Although this is ephemeral by nature; neither I nor anyone in my groups are interested in twitch streaming or anything similar.
2. Book reviews and commentary.
3. Participation in fandom memes.
    Along with the book reviews, this is basically how I've been able to maintain a base level of fandom engagement over what have been some batshit crazy years.
4. Writing fanfic.
5. Sharing recs in fandom-adjacent places.
    Specifically, loaning canon (think novels and DVDs) to RL friends who needed new things to watch and read, which resulted in some pretty great discussions/speculation with said individuals.



What things did you create that took the most time?

1. What Am I Reading Wednesday book reviews and commentary.
2. Blake & Avery series sync read meta and discussion.
3. The five fics I wrote last year.
4. Making music.
5. Expanding my tiefling rogue’s backstory for the homebrew campaign.



Have a Top 5 List you'd like to share?? By all means!

    As it happens, yes! Here are the top 5 fandom things I’m excited about engaging with this year:

1. Destiny 2: The Witch Queen.
    I love Destiny far more than it warrants based on its strictly objective merits. But there you go. I’m so excited for this expansion to drop.
2. Jaws of the Lion and Gloomhaven.
    Please let this be the year in which conditions allow for in-person meetings so I can finally play these games with my tabletop group.
3. New book releases!
    Katherine Addison’s The Grief of Stones, Melissa Albert’s Our Crooked Hearts, Joseph Elliott’s The Burning Swift, and Naomi Novik’s The Golden Enclaves will all publish this year and I can’t wait to read them.
4. getyourwordsout.
    For the first time I’ve pledged a word count goal, and I’m excited to try to meet it!
5. The Legend of Vox Machina.
    I’ve really enjoyed the Critical Role episodes I’ve watched, but the time commitment required to follow it systematically makes doing so a nonstarter for me. This format, by contrast, is doable, and moreover, it looks pretty darn good.
6. Bonus no. 6: new canon!
    I've received some really great recs in response to this year's Challenge no. 4 that I'm excited to dive into. ✨



これで以上です。