I am the Kat that Walks By Itself

(Day 7 will come out of order, when I've finished the item which I've started for Day 7)
Day 8

In your own space, create a love meme for yourself. Let people tell you how amazing and awesome and loveable you really are. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it.

Day 5

In your own space, talk about a creator. Show us why you think they are amazing. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it.

My post for this topic in 2012.

This time, I will talk of Caeria, the author of Pet Project. Why? Because that story has been the single most influential work on my own Harry Potter writing, especially my SS/HG stuff. There are so many world-building things I've been influenced by: House Elf culture, Arithmancy, challenging Hermione's ignorance of Wizarding culture, Hermione having lessons in critical thinking... mucho kudos, that's all I can say.

Day 2

In your own space, promote three communities, challenges, blogs, pages, Twitters, Tumblrs or platforms and explain why you love them.

sshg_promptfest is the successor to the SSHG Exchange. It's more laid-back, but still celebrates my only OTP, Severus Snape/Hermione Granger, and produces some great stuff. I love it also because it's one of the few (if any?) exchange/challenge/ficathon fests which includes art and craft as well as fic as appropriate things to produce for the fest.

calufrax is still going, despite some rumbles. The best place for Doctor Who fic recs, IMHO.

M.A.I.L. (Maille Artisans International League isn't quite fannish, but they have helped in my fannish craftmaking, so I declare that they count. If you want to know anything about making chainmaille, this is the place to go. Huge number of weaves, lots of articles, and the folks on the forum are helpful and friendly.

Day Nine

In your own space, create a fanwork. A drabble, a ficlet, a podfic, or an icon, art or meta or a rec list. A picspam. Something. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it.

I have made a Harry-Potter SSHG themed necklace.

Day 7

In your own space, share something non-fannish about yourself. A passion or a hobby or a talent, something that people might not know about you. We are more than just our fandoms. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it.

If you want to know something I am passionate about, I think I shall have to give the same answer as last time: my Christian faith. It's there at the back of everything, like the water that a fish swims in. But I tend to post more fannish stuff here, so the folks who joined my flist/circle since last year might not be aware of it.

So I invite y'all: ask me questions about what I believe, and I'll answer them as best I can. I know that religion can be an inflammatory topic, so I'm trusting y'all to be polite and respectful, and in that trust, I'm not f'locking this post. Please don't give me cause to regret that.

Day 5

Stretch yourself a little and try something new. Go play in a new fandom or with a new pairing. Try working in a new medium. Or consume different fanworks. Give that new fandom a go. Listen to a podfic or watch some vids if you haven’t before.

I pick "working in a new medium"... which is a continuation of newness from 2012. To wit, doing fannish craft.
To make this a proper "something new", today I started a new project with a new craft. Chain maille. I'm not sure how the final product will turn out, but my starting point is to do two chains (in box-chain, because that seems to suit the rings I have); one chain is green and silver, the other is gold and copper. Yep. Slytherin and Gryffindor. It will probably take forever to do, so I may just do the chains and call it a day. We shall see.

Anyway, that is something new.

Day 3

Comment to someone you haven't ever interacted with before or introduce yourself to someone you've interacted with and friend/follow them. Afterwards, leave a comment in this post with the equivalent of "I did it!"

Some of you have been checking out other participant's recs and self-recs from the Day 1 and Day 2 posts. If you've interacted with anyone new, you can absolutely count that for Day 3!

And indeed, I have interacted with folks Day 1 and Day 2 posts, as I went through discovering some cool recs.

http://baranduin.dreamwidth.org/1156308.html (Tolkien fan)
http://green.dreamwidth.org/185932.html (Labyrinth fan)

I'm pondering whether to friend anyone, but inclined not to, since I've added a bunch of new peeps in the last year due to the sshg_exchange and sshg_newbies (waves to my SSHG friends).

(In other news, I'm awaiting the repairman to fix my one-room air conditioner... on a day which has a predicted top of 41C! I booked the repairman last week, today was the soonest one could come. And not a moment too soon!)

This entry was originally posted at http://kerravonsen.dreamwidth.org/958150.html. (Comments ) Respond here, or respond on the Dreamwidth post, as you prefer. You can use your DW login or OpenId there.

Day 2
In your own space, post a rec for at least three fanworks that you did not create. Drop a link to your post in the comments. See if you can rec fanworks that are less likely to be praised: tiny fandoms, rare pairings, fanworks other than stories, lesser known kinks or tropes. Find fanworks that have few to no comments, or creators new to a particular fandom and maybe aren't well known or appreciated. Appreciate them.

Remember that by fanwork, we are talking about: all forms of creativity. From meta to fic writing to picspamming to hosting a comment-fic-meme to running a challenge, to vidding and podficcing and reccing and pretty much anything you can think of. Crafts, knitted items, repurposed rubber duckies, finger puppets. Pimping posts. Guides to timelines, tattoos, quotes, nit-picky canon guides, episode recaps, synopses, beta work. If you think it's creative, then it definitely fits under the heading "fanwork."

Last year, I did a variety of recs.

This time around I'm going to go for "fanworks other than stories".
( here be recs! )

Day 12

In your own space, rec at least three fanworks that you think would make a good intro into XYZ fandom. Rec a fandom overview, a introductory picspam, stories that define and shape the fandom. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

If at all possible, try to pick a smaller or rarer fandom, one that maybe doesn't have the following you feel it should. Small fandoms need love, too, right?

One of the frustrating things about going over old net-fic recs is discovering that the story you loved is no longer on the internet. I had a few different stories I wanted to rec for this day, such as "Path of Strangers" by Olwyn Mitchell, only to discover that they no longer exist. 8-(

So I think I'll link to Jeri Massi's Third Doctor stories instead. Yes, Doctor Who isn't exactly a small fandom, but it has such a huge canon that people tend to stick to particular sections of it, such as particular versions of the Doctor... and the Third Doctor doesn't get much love. Jeri Massi managed to singlehandedly change my mind about the Third Doctor, changing my attitude from "meh" to great affection.

So I invite you to read, and change your minds too.

(and, regarding my previous post - nobody has recs for me?)

Day 10

In your own space, talk about a creator. Show us why you think they are amazing. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

Make a recs list, create a Fanlore page for them, link to their archives or masterlists or websites. It can be a detailed, thoughtful analysis, or a squeeful, joyful post. Or maybe a combination of the two.

It was hard to choose for this, since there are so many awesome folks in fandom. But I shall choose rj_anderson.

It's not just because her fanwork appears multiple times on my Best-of recs page, in more than one fandom. Though that's certainly one of the reasons. I can't remember which of her works I read first, though I think it was probably her author-created-11th-Doctor stories (taken down a while back for Reasons). Every word was polished like a jewel. And then there's "Possessions", her awesome X-Files story, which is again vivid and deep.

But I just realized, in looking back at some of my reviews of her fanwork that she's been responsible for changing my mind about characters - more than once. And one of those characters was Severus Snape, and not only that, Severus Snape in a romantic context (in her "Darkness and Light" series). Which means that she's indirectly responsible for my current love of SS/HG.

Here's to people who make us love the characters even more!

(Of course, she isn't writing much fic nowadays, because she's Gone Pro. But I don't begrudge that, because that's more awesome stuff that she's writing that I can read!)