Snowflake Challenge #4

[olivermoss]

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.

Hrmm... What I always want more of in fandom is casual conversation spaces, but Snowflake/Sunshine are some of the best events for that. It's part of why I like them.

Looking at some other people's wishlists, I am seeing the same idea echoed, that casual pan-fandom comms and talk were more of a thing. Just going with the tides of fandom and hanging out with the people who got into one show and losing touch with others because they didn't stick with a show isn't great.

I'd post links to my photography website because I always love people looking at my stuff, but except for my concert photography I haven't updated it in a while! I have a lot of new work, I just need to make myself pick what pics go in what gallery.

Honestly, most of the things I really want/need right now involve getting my projects done or for offline life to stop being a mess. But since a lot of my projects are Leverage and a lot of other people are posting about their fics, here is my Leverage fic. Feedback would be motivating :)

Comments

[muccamukk]

I feel like I talk to people not in my fandoms (though possibly because next to no one on this platform ARE in my fandoms) more now that comms have declined. It seems really hard to silo now, so I just read the blogs of people who are into whatever. I would also like a multi-fandom discussion space though.

[olivermoss]

A lot of fandom is on Discord now, which I love, but the siloing can be intense. I love DW, but it took years for me to be established enough here to have conversations. I feel like a lot of people bounce off of the platform due to how hard it is to get set up here, without more comms. I mostly stayed just due to long ingrained LJ habits.

[kiestan]

Have you tried Reddit's r/fanfiction community? It's a fun place to have conversations and I met some great people there and followed them over to Discord/ Dreamwidth/ AO3, even if we don't share a lot of fandoms.

[olivermoss]

I've poked my nose in there a few times. I don't think reddit is for me for fandom stuff. Thanks, tho!

[mistressofmuses]

Add me to the crowd of people echoing the same sentiment! I miss the casual spaces where you could talk about various stuff, without it being focused on a single fandom. It sucks that so many people want that, and yet it's so hard to get discussions going in communities and things! (I say, fully aware that I am part of this problem.)

I do hope that all current projects cooperate with you and make themselves easy to do. And also that offline stuff gets better and less messy, too.

[olivermoss]

I think in years past I begged for people to post to my comms. Just other people posting can spark activity. Since comms have declined so much, you sort of need to model how they are supposed to work for people. If it's always mod posting people osmos that they shouldn't post.

Thanks! I hope to do some writing tonight :)

[mistressofmuses]

I definitely need to get better about posting to communities. I just never feel like I have anything worthwhile to say! But I know that the only way to get community spaces to be more active is for people to use them!

Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith]

>>What I always want more of in fandom is casual conversation spaces, but Snowflake/Sunshine are some of the best events for that. It's part of why I like them.<<

I keep seeing people wishing for that, but only one person followed it with a personal plan of action.

Me, I'd like to see three_weeks_for_dw revived. That didn't just boost blog activity, it brought in new users.

Check for pan-fandom comms, and if there isn't one you like, set it up. You can promote it during Snowflake when everyone's asking for it.

allbingo runs a fest every month. All fandoms and formats are welcome.

>>I'd post links to my photography website because I always love people looking at my stuff, but except for my concert photography I haven't updated it in a while! I have a lot of new work, I just need to make myself pick what pics go in what gallery.<<

I like photography. Some of mine are here, mostly pictures of my yard.

[badfalcon]

I too would like the casual hanging out fandom things. *sigh*
Also ooh Leverage fic! :D

[olivermoss]

It feels like half the posts for this challenge did!

[bluedreaming]

In a strange way, casual conversation is one of the things that's kept me in podfic creation, since you have a lot of people with a shared interest (podfics) that are still very varied in fandoms and other likes, but still all conversing and moving in similar ways.
I really don't know how to get that same feeling outside of that though. I know there's a c entertainment comm and there seem to be pretty regular posts so it must still be somehow possible.

[olivermoss]

Having a group like that is cool. Fen tend to have a lot of baseline things in common, we are just hard to herd. Honestly, the only reason I am still on DW is that posting LJ entries was just such a habit for me and how I'd process stuff that I kept posting even when I had no connections here. I did so privately for a while, and then started posting openly again after a few rounds of Snowflake and Sunshine.

C Ent is huge right now. I've tried to start genre comms like Urban Fantasy, but they didn't take off.

[bluedreaming]

Definitely. All somewhat connected and yet moving in different concentric circles.
That's so admirable! I'd like to post more, but it somehow doesn't happen. I have all these tweets bookmarked to transfer to DW in mini-longform; one day I guess.

Yeah, I guess there's also the aspect of a genre whose fandom (at least in some circles) hasn't spread out too far yet, like maybe a broader genre interest has. That's too bad!

[olivermoss]

Yeah, it can be hard to start posting again. We need more ways to hang out that are less intense than writing posts, but also that isn't the hellscape that is fandom twitter.

[spikedluv]

I've bookmarked your Leverage fic to read later, thank you!

[olivermoss]

Oh, cool! Thank you :)